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MODERN ENGLISH 

ITS GROWTH AND PRESENT USE 



MODERN ENGLISH 



ITS GROWTH AND PRESENT USE 



BY 

GEORGE PHILIP KRAPP, Ph.D. 

PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH IN THE UNIVERSITY OF CINCINNATI 
AUTHOR OF "THE ELEMENTS OF ENGLISH GRAMMAR'' 



NEW YORK 
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 

1909 



flirt* 



Copyright, 1909 
By Charles Scribner's Sons 




Hi ft ^ 4 ^ 

Alia t ? 1909 










To 
BRAIDER MATTHEWS 

MASTER OF MODERN ENGLISH 

THIS VOLUME 

IS INSCRIBED BY HIS FRIEND AND DEBTOR 

THE AUTHOR 



PREFACE 



This book is not designed to do away with the neces- 
sity for using the dictionaries, grammars, and detailed 
histories of the English language, but to prepare the 
way for the more profitable and intelligent use of these 
books. The grammars and the dictionaries are the mines 
in which the crude materials, the natural resources, of 
the language are stored ; the principles of development 
appearing in language, the opinions which men hold with 
respect to the use of language, these are the appliances 
and the machinery by means of which the riches of the 
dictionaries and encyclopedias of fact may be made avail- 
able for effective command over language. Some of the 
more important of these principles and opinions it is the 
purpose of this book to present. 

The generalizations here set forth are some of them 
the commonplaces of the historical study of language. 
For stating them again in his own way, the author does 
not feel that any apology is necessary. They are given 
as simply as possible for the advantage of those readers 
and students who wish to be informed as to the results 
of the modern scientific study of language, but who 
are not themselves professional linguists. The book is 
untechnical, but, the author hopes, not unscholarly. 
Attention is called in the brief bibliography at the end 
of the volume to representative works which may be 



Vin PREFACE 

consulted by those who wish to enter into the sub- 
jects treated more fully than the limits of this volume 
permitted. 

Perhaps fuller citations of literary authorities may 
be expected in discussions of points of divided use than 
have been given. In general, however, it does not seem 
to the author that the appeal to literary authority is the 
proper method of attack in examining disputed ques- 
tions of speech, spoken or written, and that very little 
is gained by an elaborate assemblage of examples from 
literary sources to confirm or to disprove a point of 
present use. Where there is a real difference of prac- 
tice — and this, it may be pointed out, is relatively 
infrequent — nine times out of ten it would be as easy 
to support one side as the other by the testimony of 
literary authority. Past literary use is only one of many 
tests that must be applied in determining present use. 
The reading of literary English should strengthen the 
habitual and unconscious feeling for expression by which 
one acquires a large, a sure, and a varied sense of the 
possible values of language. It should suggest what 
may be done with language by showing what has been 
done with it. Literary English, indeed, should be re- 
garded in the same way as spoken English. Both are 
forms of expression which have to be reduced to natural 
and unconscious habit before they can be said to have 
been mastered. Now nothing hinders such mastery 
so much as a meticulous respect for the authority of 
literary practice. De Quincey once said that authors 
are a dangerous class for any language. He meant, 
of course, that the literary habit of mind is likely to 
prove dangerous for a language. It is likely to prove 
dangerous because it so often leads a speaker or writer 



PREFACE ix 

to distrust natural and unconscious habit, even when 
it is right, and to put in its stead some conscious theory 
of literary propriety. Such a tendency, however, is 
directly opposed to the true feeling for idiomatic Eng- 
lish. It destroys the sense of security, the assurance 
of perfect congruity between thought and expression, 
which the unliterary and unacademic speaker and writer 
often has, and which, with both literary and unliterary, 
is the basis for all expressive use of language. The 
source of authority in deciding questions of propriety 
in form, questions which naturally arise less and less 
frequently as one acquires a sure sense of the expressive 
value of language, lies not in past use, but in what 
might be called future use, that is, in the effectiveness 
of the expression upon the minds of those who are to be 
the receivers of it. But enough — perhaps too much 
— has been said upon this subject in the body of the 
book, and it may be left here with the statement that 
altho good modern English derives much from tradi- 
tional literary English, the final test of its goodness 
or its badness is to be found always in immediate and 
not in past use. 

To the various excellent histories of the English 
language by Emerson, Lounsbury, Jespersen, Toller, 
and Bradley, as well as to more specialized studies and 
essays, the author gratefully acknowledges his general 
indebtedness. Wherever this indebtedness is specific, 
the endeavor has been to give the credit where it is due. 
Above all, the New English Dictionary has been con- 
stantly and unfailingly helpful. This work really holds 
the mirror up to nature. It does not use the language 
of the imagination, but it is an amazing record of the 
workings of the imagination. One who wishes to know 



X PREFACE 

the English language cannot do better than give his 
days and his nights to the study of the New English 
Dictionary. To those friends who haye discussed with 
him the ideas which the volume contains, the author 
acknowledges an indebtedness not compensated by this 
formal recognition. Among these friendly disputants 
he would mention in particular Prof. A. H. Thorndike, 
of Columbia University, Mr. J. G. Bowman, Secretary 
of the Carnegie Foundation, and Mr. C. M. Baker, 
Headmaster of Latin in the Horace Mann School. 

G. P. K. 

The University of Cincinnati 
June, 1909 



CONTENTS 



Page 

I Introduction 3 

II The English People 15 

III The English Language 44 

IV English Inflections 56 

V English Sounds 99 

VI English Words 183 

VII English Grammar 286 

VIII Conclusion 325 

APPENDIX 

The Old English Chronicle, fol. l a . The Par- 
doner's Tale, fol. 306 a . The First Folio of 

Shakspere. Lycidas, ll. 165-193 .... 335 

Bibliography 343 

Index of Subjects 349 

Index of Words 353 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

The Old English Chronicle, Laud MS. 636, fol. l a . . 25 
Chaucer's Pardoner's Tale, Cambridge Univ. MS. G-. G. 

4. 27, fol. 306 81 

Shakspere, First Folio, Merchant of Venice, IV, 1, 

119-152 161 

Autograph of Milton's Lycidas, 11. 165-193 .... 307 



MODERN ENGLISH 



MODERN ENGLISH 



i 

INTRODUCTION 

1. History and Politics. History, according to the 
saying of a distinguished modern historian, is past 
politics. To the contemporary observer, the practical 
measures supported and opposed by the various rival 
political parties seem of only passing significance be- 
cause they arise out of the immediate daily problems 
and needs of actual life. When these same measures, 
however, are viewed in the perspective of years, they 
are seen then not to be independent and unrelated. 
More or less unconsciously to themselves, the practical 
politicians help or retard certain large principles of 
development in the life of a people. Present politics is 
history in the making. 

2. The History of Language. In the same way the 
history of a language is merely the record of the practi- 
cal every-day speech of successive generations. Every 
person who speaks or writes a language, who hands on 
from one speaker to another any of the traditions of the 
language is, in so far, a factor in the historical growth 
of the language. And the whole history of the language 
is made up of the sum of the individual acts of all those 
who in past times have used the language in response 



4 MODERN ENGLISH 

to the immediate practical needs of life. Just as poli- 
tics is history in the making, so present, every-day 
speech and writing is the history of the language in the 
making. 

Another conclusion of the modern political historians 
is applicable to the history of language. It is a very 
general opinion among historians that the justification 
of the study of the history of past periods is to be found 
in the application of the results of such study to the 
conditions of present life. Man learns to know himself 
better, to conduct the affairs of his public and private 
life better, from having observed the consequences of 
the actions of men in other days. So also by the study 
of the history of his speech he learns to adjust himself 
more wisely to the conditions of present speech. He 
learns that contemporary speech is not, on the one hand, 
a chaos of individual instances, nor is it, on the other, 
governed according to the decrees of a rigid, theoretical 
system. He perceives that it is a living thing, and that 
the principles which it illustrates in its growth have all 
the flexibility and variety of life. To enable a speaker 
or writer to realize this spirit, or life, of his own present 
speech is one of the main ends of the historical study 
of language. 

3. The Function of Language. The effort to under- 
stand this spirit, to find out what the tendencies of one's 
native speech are, good and bad, is beset with many 
difficulties. The uncertainty of the bearing of present 
events always makes difference of opinion possible. If 
we knew exactly the future significance of an action, 
whether in politics, in personal conduct, or in speech, we 
should doubtless all hold the same opinion with respect 



INTRODUCTION 5 

to that action. But the future does not so easily yield 
up its secrets, and our only guides are inferences drawn 
from the observation of the past and the present. 
There is always one ground of inference, however, 
which offers a firm foothold. Our opinions with respect 
to an action are naturally determined by the value of 
that action in attaining the end towards which the actor 
is striving. Our attitude towards any question of lan- 
guage should consequently be determined by the pur- 
pose and the function of language, just as the value of 
any political action is c rmined by its serving or not 
serving the purpose for which the state exists. What, 
then, is the function of language? Briefly answered, 
language is a form of social custom and its function is 
the expression of social ideas. Language as social cus- 
tom means that it has been slowly developed by man- 
kind in the social relations of men to each other. It is 
closely paralleled in its development by other kinds of 
social custom. The laws governing rights of property, 
of individual liberty, of self-defense, the moral laws, 
such as those directed against lying, deception, and in- 
sincerity, the rules of conduct in minor matters, such as 
have to do with behavior and good breeding, — all these 
have grown up as the result of the intercourse of man 
with man in social life. The habits, or the rules, of 
such intercourse, through a long succession of genera- 
tions have fixed themselves in the life of the people as 
their social customs. Whether they are reduced to 
writing, as is generally the case with criminal law, or 
are merely held as the traditional rules of conduct of a 
people, they are always in their origins the customary 
rules of action which ha^ arisen out of the practical 



6 MODERN ENGLISH 

exigencies of one man's trying to live on terms of social 
understanding with another. 

4. Speech as Social Custom. The special function 
of speech as social custom is the expression of social 
ideas. If men are to live with each other, if they are 
not to be like stocks and stones, then they must have 
some means of conveying to each other their needs, 
their desires, their ideas, their aspirations. This they 
might do by various means. So long as the ideas were 
simple and primitive, they might be conveyed by very 
crude means. A brandished club might serve to indi- 
cate one's sense of the right of possession in a piece of 
disputed property. But it is one of the characteristics 
of man as man that the ideas which he wishes to con- 
vey to his fellow-men have not remained thus simple 
and crude. The social intercourse of men has become 
extremely complex, both emotionally and intellectually, 
and, corresponding to this complexity, there has been 
an equal growth in the variety and the subtlety of the 
customs of speech. Out of the practical needs of com- 
munication has arisen the vast fabric of human lan- 
guage. Manifestly, then, the best language being that 
which most adequately realizes the function of lan- 
guage, that is the best which enables men to express 
themselves most fully and satisfactorily in their rela- 
tions to each other. This is the ideal towards which 
language strives. In the animal world we speak of 
degeneration when certain functions of the organism 
necessary to the preservation of its life and the exist- 
ence of its species become weakened. In the same way 
we may speak of degeneration in a language when it 
changes in such a way that pit becomes less capable of 



INTRODUCTION 7 

performing the functions for which language exists; 
and, on the other hand, we may speak of growth and 
improvement in language as it becomes more and more 
effective in enabling men to understand each other. 

5. The Speech of a Democracy. The necessity of 
realizing in an ever-increasing degree this ideal function 
of language is one that is peculiarly incumbent upon a 
democracy. The best national speech for a democracy 
is that which enables it to be most fully self -expressive. 
It is in itself that the fate of a democracy lies. From 
its own members must emanate all its laws, its ideals of 
conduct, of whatever nature. It must have confidence 
in the value of its united opinion; and its prime duty 
consists in such a free and liberal exchange of ideas that 
there shall be a united opinion. A democracy which is 
not self-expressive and self-determining is not a real 
democracy. Anything in speech, therefore, which pre- 
vents the democratic nation from realizing itself as a 
self-determining body is harmful. Thus the national 
speech of a democracy cannot be sectional; if there is 
not one uniform speech acceptable to the whole nation, 
then the speech of one region must have equal authority 
with that of another. The speech of a democracy can- 
not be a class speech ; it cannot be a traditional literary 
speech, the so-called " best English " of a special limited 
academic or literary class. Its roots must go deeper. 
They must strike down into the region of the practical 
daily life of the citizens whose vote and whose opinion 
make the country what it is. If it is to have any en- 
during vitality it must rest upon the basis of national 
custom where national custom is made. The duty of 
making these customs sound and good is one that rests 



8 MODERN ENGLISH 

on all alike. The welfare of the speech of a democracy 
can no more be left in the hands of a few preservers 
or regulators than its political government can be left 
in the hands of a few self-appointed directors or dic- 
tators. In both a diffused intelligence is the prime 
requisite to a healthy national life. 

6. Speech and Education. The obstacles that 
stand in the way of the realization of the ideal of a 
democratic speech are confessedly numerous and great. 
It is difficult, in the first place, to determine just how 
much value should be ascribed to tradition. Old ways 
are not good merely because they are old ; and of course 
the same can be said of new ways. It is a fair con- 
servative assumption, however, that what has served 
man's purpose in the past will continue to serve it 
best in the present, until changed conditions demand 
new ways. But again one must take heed not to be 
so blinded by old customs as not to perceive when the 
conditions actually are changed. In the second place, 
democracy works from the bottom up, and not from 
the top down. Consequently, popular education when 
it is diffused over the whole body of society, as society 
is at present constituted, is likely to be a somewhat 
thin and inadequate kind of education. It thus hap- 
pens that there are people who rest content with very 
imperfect education, who take the dry husks of the 
mere rudiments of education for the reality itself. We 
find persons who think that the secret of good English 
consists merely in expressing themselves in a certain 
prescribed way, in using a certain intonation of voice 
or a certain quality of vowel sound when they speak, 
or one form of phrasing, or even of spelling, rather 



INTRODUCTION 9 

than another, when they write. They fail to realize 
that the conventional customs of speaking and writing, 
important as the knowledge of them is, are neverthe- 
less the mere preliminaries, the elementary mechanics, 
of a good use of language. English which is merely 
correct cannot claim very high praise. Going a little 
lower in the scale of intelligence, we may find that a 
man who has come from generations of ancestors who 
could not write, is likely to think that the simple ability 
to write is the pinnacle of education. But for him per- 
haps it is; and all that democratic education can offer 
to any large body of people in different stages of de- 
velopment is the opportunity for each to realize what 
at a given moment is the highest and best thing for 
him to do. The general level cannot be raised by a 
single act, or by the acts of a few, but only by the 
sum of all the acts of the people who make up the 
whole. In spite, therefore, of the low ideals of certain 
members of the body politic, it must always remain 
the hope of a democracy that the average plane of its 
life will rise higher and higher from generation to gen- 
eration. And so long as the life of the people remains 
vigorous, so long as their minds and their wills are 
energetic and stirring, this will remain a well-founded 
hope. 

7. The Best Tendency in Speech. In speech, there- 
fore, the ideal attitude of mind is that which leads the 
speaker to unite himself to those customs and tenden- 
cies which, in his opinion, make for the welfare of the 
national idiom in the most effective manner. If speech 
arises, as we have said, out of the immediate social rela- 
tions of man with man, it will be seen that therein lies 






10 MODERN ENGLISH 

the final test of its value. It will be seen, also, that 
those tendencies of speech with which a speaker or 
writer wishes to unite himself are merely manifestations 
of general social tendencies. Shall our ideal social 
tendency be one that makes for exclusiveness, for the 
development of limited class distinctions ? Or shall it 
be a broader and more liberal tendency, one that is dem- 
ocratic and generously inclusive ? In speech shall we 
endeavor to cultivate refined and more or less arbitrary 
distinctions which shall enable us to make a strict divi- 
sion between conventional and literary English, on the 
one hand, and what may be called natural and self- 
determining English on the other ? Is the best English 
that which is acquired by learning and following an ex- 
ternal rule, or is it the English which is acquired by fol- 
lowing social custom, the best, as each views it, and as 
each is brought into contact with it, in the actual proc- 
esses of living, speaking, and writing ? These are some 
of the questions which each of us must answer for him- 
self. Necessarily every speaker and every writer must 
follow some tendency of the speech of the community, 
whether this be conscious or unconscious. Every one 
of us is always following, at the same time that he is 
helping to make, custom. In what direction shall we 
throw our influence ? Before we can answer this ques- 
tion we must have some knowledge of the conflicting 
customs and tendencies of our speech, and as this knowl- 
edge grows in breadth and certainty, the answer to the 
question will become, according to our sympathies, cor- 
respondingly easy and unhesitating. 

8. Literary and Spoken Language. In all study 
of language as expression, it is now generally conceded, 



INTRODUCTION 11 

by those who have given much thought to the matter, 
that the spoken, as compared with the written or literary- 
language, is of far the greater importance. It is mainly 
in the speech of men and women as they come into 
direct social relations with each other that language de- 
velops and grows in a natural, untrammeled, and effec- 
tive way. The language of literature is merely an 
approximate transcription, more or less remote, of the 
language of speech. It is from the latter that the lan- 
guage of literature is derived, and it must always return 
to its source to renew itself when, as it constantly tends 
to do, it becomes attenuated and outworn. This being 
granted, it readily follows that it is speech which we 
should study, not only for effectiveness in conversation, 
but also for effectiveness in literature. The popular 
opinion is not usually in accord with this statement. It 
is often believed that the language of literature is some- 
thing different from and better than the language of 
speech. This latter, being the common possession of all, 
is looked down upon as something ignoble, or at least 
not admirable. Because it is familiar, it is regarded as 
contemptible. It is supposed that the ability to use the 
English of literature is a special and acquired accom- 
plishment, and that one learns the language of literature 
as one learns a new art, like playing the piano or paint- 
ing. Being a special and higher accomplishment, the 
language of literature is thus often regarded as furnish- 
ing the model for the language of speech, and the theory 
is held that the latter should be made to conform as 
fully as possible to the former. One need only u talk 
like a book " to realize the absurdity of such a belief. 
On the other hand it is no credit to the language of lit- 



12 MODERN ENGLISH 

erature to read like a book. Literary language which is 
bookish we do not regard as admirable ; on the con- 
trary, when we want to praise an author's style, we 
rather say that it is true, natural, real. The fact is that 
literature endeavors merely to transcribe life, to give in 
the permanent form of words and sentences the passing 
experiences, thoughts, and emotions of men. According 
as it does this the more directly and truly, the greater 
literature it is. There is no need to prove that language 
is one of the most characteristic expressions of human 
life. It is as speaking beings that men think of them- 
selves. The writer, therefore, who wishes to transcribe 
human life, must transcribe it in the forms of speech in 
which it finds its most immediate expression. His task 
is parallel to that of the artist. When a portrait painter 
wishes to paint a portrait, he must study the features 
of the human face and the lines of the human figure ; 
when a landscape painter wishes to transfer to canvas 
his impressions of sea or land, he must go into the open 
and study clouds, trees, and atmosphere. Both are said 
to follow nature, because it is their impressions of the 
reality in nature which they endeavor to record. In the 
same way the literary artist must follow nature, not only 
by studying the inner moods and actuating motives of 
men, but also the ways in which these moods and mo- 
tives find their most natural and effective expression. It 
is true, of course, that literary language has customs and 
conventions, for example, meter in poetry, which are 
peculiar to itself. In the same way painting has cer- 
tain devices, tricks of method, which in themselves are 
untrue to nature, but which are used because to the 
beholder they produce or heighten the effects of nature. 



INTRODUCTION 13 

The painter's concern is to cause the illusion of nature, 
since he cannot actually create the counterpart to na- 
ture. So also the literary artist attempts to produce 
the illusion of reality in language. All that is appro- 
priate to speech is consequently not necessarily ap- 
propriate to all forms of literature, and, on the other 
hand, some things are appropriate to certain kinds of 
literature which are not appropriate to speech. But 
whenever the customs and conventions of literature be- 
come so peculiar to it that they are purely literary, or 
academic, as we say, when they produce the effect of 
being untrue to, or remote from, nature, then they are 
appropriate neither to the literary nor to any other lan- 
guage. It is to the natural, spoken language that we 
make our final appeal. And it is interesting to observe 
that just those periods of English literature have been 
greatest in which the language of literature stood near- 
est to the language of speech. Chaucer's literary style 
became more and more natural as he grew older, until in 
the Canterbury Tales, his latest work, we almost think 
we hear his characters speak. The language of Shak- 
spere is the language of the drama, and whatever con- 
ventions the language of the drama may have, its prime 
requisite is that it shall be true to life. The poets of 
a third great period of English literature, beginning with 
Wordsworth and Coleridge, made the imitation of the 
simple speech of daily life their first principle. Their 
art on the side of language consists largely in a return 
to nature as exemplified in speech. What is true of 
English, is true of literature generally. Students of 
Greek tell us that much of the charm of Greek litera- 
ture consists in the intimate dependence of the language 



14 MODERN ENGLISH 

of literature upon the language of speech ; Greek liter- 
ary style is not a special caste language for literary pur- 
poses, but rather an extension of the spoken language to 
written uses. Moliere, the only Frenchman worthy to 
rank as the fellow of Shakspere, owes much of his 
power to the naturalness of his style. Hating as he did 
hypocrisy and affectation in every form, we should ex- 
pect to find him natural and real in his writing. In 
short it is a false standard of value to assume that the 
test of highest excellence is to be found only in printed 
and written words. These are merely makeshifts and 
substitutes for the reality. They serve, to be sure, a 
very important purpose. For one thing, they preserve 
what otherwise might become lost if intrusted only to 
oral transmission. They perform a tremendous service 
to humanity also by extending the bounds of individual 
experience. In a library of books we can commune at 
will with the spirits of all ages and all places. Indeed 
the ability to write is so highly regarded by mankind 
that perhaps no other kind of fame is so generally and 
so eagerly desired as literary fame. Yet this glory 
should not blind one to the fact that literature is not 
self -producing, but grows out of nature. The aspirant 
for literary fame must not only know letters, above all 
he must know life. If he wishes to write for his age, 
he must know how the men of his age speak. He must 
not expend all his energy and admiration upon books, 
but must turn to that form of the language which, above 
the language of books, is the most wonderful, the most 
dignified, and the most worthy of respect, the flexible, 
subtle speech of men in the infinite relations of human 
life. 



II 

THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 

1. Speech and Race. The English language is one 
of the most widely distributed languages of the modern 
world. Centered originally in the little kingdom of 
England, the speech has spread to all the four corners 
of the globe. It has become the speech of two of the 
most powerful nations of modern times, and is now 
the speech of the most numerous civilized people of 
the world. In the course of its history, it has imposed 
itself upon peoples originally speaking many different 
languages and originally of very diverse racial origins ; 
and altho each new body thus incorporated has affected 
the whole, the stock of the language has remained es- 
sentially the same to the present day. It shall be our 
first task to take a survey of the history of the English 
language from this ethnological or racial point of view. 

2. Celtic Britain. In the first century before Christ, 
when the island of Great Britain first became well 
knoAvn to the Romans, who were then the most power- 
ful as well as the most highly civilized nation of 
Europe, it was occupied by a race of Celtic people, 
speaking a Celtic language. This race had been pre- 
ceded in Biitain by various different, prehistoric races 
concerning which little is known; it was one of these 
prehistoric races, however, which reared the great 
monoliths at Stonehenge on Salisbury Plain. The 



16 MODERN ENGLISH 

Celtic inhabitants of the island called themselves Brit- 
ons, and from this name of the people the country was 
called Britannia by the Romans, whence is derived our 
modern Britain. The Celts of Britain were merely a 
branch of a greater Celtic people which then dwelt in 
Gaul and in Spain, the Celts of Gaul being the prede- 
cessors of the Franks, a Teutonic people from whom 
the country derived its modern name of France. On 
the Continent the Celts have been almost completely 
absorbed by the Roman and Teutonic conquerors of 
their countries. But in England to this day they have 
maintained a more or less separate existence, and their 
speech still survives in the Gaelic of the Highlands of 
Scotland, the Welsh of Wales, and also in the Irish of 
Ireland. Until comparatively recent times a Celtic 
speech was also spoken in Cornwall. 

3. The Roman Invasions. The first military inva- 
sion which the Romans, the world conquerors, made 
against the Celts of Britain, was in the years 55 and 
54 B. C, under the leadership of Julius Caesar. This 
was more in the nature of an excursion from Gaul, 
however, where Caesar was then campaigning, 1 than 
a settled attempt to conquer the country. The serious 
conquest of Britain was not undertaken until about a 
century later, A. D. 42, under the Emperor Claudius ; 
and about the year A. D. 80 the country was organized 
as a Roman province, under the command of the Roman 
general Agricola. The portions of the country occupied 
by the Romans were chiefly those central, southern, 
and eastern parts which later became the kingdom of 
England. The mountainous regions of Wales in the 

1 See Gallic War, Books IV and V. 



THE ENGLISH PEOPLE IT 

West and of Scotland in the North were sought out as 
a place of refuge by the Celts who had been driven out 
of the more fertile regions of the lowlands. In these 
fastnesses they maintained an independent and hostile 
existence. As a protection against Celtic invasions from 
the north the Emperor Hadrian (A. D. 120) built a wall, 
parts of which are still standing, between the Firth of 
Solway and the mouth of the river Tyne. A second wall 
was later built by Antoninus Pius, extending from the 
Firth of Clyde to the Firth of Forth ; and still later these 
walls were ftfrther extended by the Emperor Severus, 
who came to Britain in the year 208. In the protected 
regions the Roman civilization in Britain was prosperous 
and highly developed. The ground was cultivated, and 
sheep and cattle were raised. The mines of Cornwall 
and of Northumberland were worked and an extensive 
commerce with the Continent was carried on. The Ro- 
mans built houses, temples, theaters, altars, and baths 
after the style of the buildings of their home country, 
and ruins and relics of these houses that have been pre- 
served to modern times show that some of them must 
have been very luxurious. They built also highways 
(as for example Watling Street, extending the whole 
breadth of England from Canterbury to Chester), some 
parts of which are in use to this day. Our word " street," 
derived from Latin strata, in the phrase strata via, u paved 
way," was borrowed from the Roman soldiers, both on 
the Continent and in Britain. These highways were 
built, in accordance with the usual policy of the Romans, 
as military roads to facilitate the passage of troops from 
one section of the country to another. Walled cities 
were also established at various advantageous points in 



18 MODERN ENGLISH 

Britain, and many of these have likewise lasted to 
modern times, some of them still preserving parts of the 
old Roman defenses. They were called castra, and this 
word, in its modified forms, appears in the names Ches- 
ter, Winchester, Doncaster, Gloucester, Worcester, Exeter 
(in Anglo-Saxon times known as Exanceaster), and in 
many other names of towns and places. The language 
which was spoken by the Romans in Britain was the 
Latin language in a popular or colloquial form, being the 
ordinary language of the soldiers and merchants who 
constituted the larger part of the population. It was 
the same language as that spoken in Gaul by the Roman 
conquerors of that country, and if the Romans in Eng- 
land had continued in uninterrupted residence, as they 
did in Gaul, it is quite probable that the language of 
Great Britain to-day would be a Romance speech instead 
of English. 

The Roman occupation of. Britain, however, came to a 
sudden end. In the fourth and fifth centuries A. D., the 
pressure of the northern tribes upon Italy and Rome be- 
gan to make itself felt, and Rome was compelled to 
strengthen her home defenses. To do this it was neces- 
sary to call in certain of the legions that were stationed 
in the provinces, and naturally the most distant were the 
first thus to be given up. In the year 407 the greater 
part of the Roman soldiery left Britain ; in the year 410 
the last Roman legion was withdrawn, and the Emperor 
Honorius sent a letter to the people of Britain in which 
he told them to take charge of their own defense. 
Since the Roman civilization in Britain had been al- 
together military in character, the withdrawal of the 
legions immediately prepared the way for the breaking 



THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 19 

down of the whole Roman system of government and 
for the next important and dramatic episode in the 
history of the island, the coming of the English. 

4. The Anglo-Saxon Conquest. Besides their her- 
editary enemies, the Celts of the mountainous regions of 
Wales and Scotland, the Romans in Britain had had 
another foe to contend with. These were certain Ger- 
manic Saxon tribes who were in the habit of crossing 
over from north Germanv and ravaging: the eastern coast 
of Britain, known as the Saxon Shore because it was ex- 
posed to the attacks of the Saxons. While the Roman 
soldiers were still stationed in Britain these predatory 
bands of warriors could be easily held in check. With 
the departure of the legions, however, the state of affairs 
was altered. The Celts of the highlands, finding that 
the defenses of the country had been weakened by the 
withdrawal of the Roman soldiery, swarmed down from 
their rocky fastnesses, and immediately began the task 
of regaining their ancestral kingdoms. It is probable 
that the Roman citizens left behind in the towns after the 
departure of the legions were an unwarlike population. 
The defense of the country had so long been left in the 
hands of a professional military class that when this 
class was removed there were none left trained in the 
arts of war to take its place. At any rate the inhabit- 
ants of the Roman towns and the dwellers in the Roman 
villas were no match for the rude and warlike Celts. 
They were thus placed between two fires, the Celts on 
the one side and the marauding Germanic tribes on the 
other. Thinking to seize the more favorable horn of the 
dilemma, they turned to the Germanic invaders and 
asked them to come over and help them subdue their 



20 MODERN ENGLISH 

enemies. In response to this invitation, extended by 
Vortigern, king of the Roman Britons, tradition tells us 
that two Saxon chiefs, Hengest and Horsa, with their 
followers, landed on the island of Thanet, on the coast of 
Kent, in the year 449. True to their compact they first 
aided the Roman Britons to drive back the Celts, but 
the story goes that, observing the weakness of their allies 
and the richness of the land, they sent word back to 
their countrymen at home that they should come over 
and assist them, that they might together possess the 
land. The warriors who came in response to this request 
were of three tribes of north Germans, the Angles, 
who lived in the region of modern Holstein, the Jutes, 
who lived in the region of modern Jutland, and the 
Saxons, who lived in the region of modern Schleswig. 
The story of the conflict between these Teutonic tribes 
and the Roman Britons, with whom the Celts now be- 
came united against the common foe, has been but im- 
perfectly reported by history. We know that the 
struggle was stubborn, but it is plain that the Britons 
were unable to stand out against their barbarous foe- 
men. Battle after battle was fought, but always with 
the result that the Britons were driven further inland 
and up into the mountainous regions to which the Ro- 
mans several centuries before had driven the original 
Celts. Later tradition has developed in great detail the 
story of King Arthur, the heroic leader of the Britons, 
and of his twelve great battles against the Teutonic 
heathen. But there are no authentic records of these 
twelve battles, or of King Arthur, that would enable us 
to build up a connected story of the events. All we 
know is that out of the welter and confusion of these 



THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 21 

wars, a new Teutonic England, consisting at first of a 
number of separate kingdoms, arose from the ruins of 
the old Celtic and Roman Britain. The first Anglo- 
Saxon kingdom to be founded was that of Kent. In 519 
occurs the first mention of a West Saxon kingdom, and 
547 is the date of the first Northumbrian king. By 
the middle of the sixth century, therefore, we may 
say that the Saxon conquest of Britain was complete. 
This does not mean that the whole island was under 
Saxon control, for Wales and Scotland were still Celtic, 
as they had been all through the period of Roman occu- 
pation. From their retreats in the mountains the Celts 
continued to make frequent forays into the Saxon 
country, and the story of the complete reduction of 
Celtic Britain would carry us far down into modern 
times. 

The three tribes who had thus become masters of the 
fairest part of the island of Britain, settled each in a 
separate region. The Jutes, who were the smallest of 
the three tribes, settled in Kent and the Isle of Wight. 
The Angles settled the regions north of the Thames to 
the Firth of Forth, exclusive of the region immediately 
north of the mouth of the Thames. The two main 
kingdoms of the Angles were Northumbria and Mercia. 
As the most numerous and best organized of the tribes 
and the one in which a literature was first developed, 
the Angles in time gave the name to the whole country, 
Englaland, " land of the Angles," and to the speech, 
Englisc sprcec, or Englisc gereord, " the English speech." 
The Saxons settled the regions south of the Thames, 
excepting those parts occupied by the Jutes, and the re- 
gion just north of the mouth of that river. The chief 



22 MODERN ENGLISH 

Saxon kingdoms were Wessex, the kingdom of the West 
Saxons ; Essex, the kingdom of the East Saxons ; Sussex, 
the kingdom of the South Saxons ; and Middlesex, the 
kingdom of the Middle Saxons. For a long time these 
various Anglian, Jutish, and Saxon kingdoms main- 
tained separate existences. They were first united into 
a loose sort of confederation by Egbert, who came to the 
throne of Wessex in the year 802, but it was not until 
the beginning of the tenth century that the union became 
complete and lasting. This united people, as has been 
stated, called itself the English people. They are also 
known by the name Anglo-Saxons, a composite name 
made up of the two most important tribes that united to 
form the nation ; this name, however, is an invention of 
scholars and historians of later times, and altho it is 
a convenient descriptive name, it should be remembered 
that the Anglo-Saxons in their own period called them- 
selves English and their country England. 1 To bring 
out the fact of the direct sequence of the later periods of 
English history after the earlier, it is often convenient 
to speak of the Anglo-Saxon period as the Old English 
period, and of the language of the time as Old English. 
This terminology thus runs parallel to the succeeding 
Middle English and Modern English periods. 

1 The words England, English are pronounced as though they were 
written Ingland, Inglish. As a matter of fact in earlier periods they were 
often so written, the pronunciation being then in accord with the spelling. 
In Anglo-Saxon the words were written Englaland, Englisc, and were pro- 
nounced as written. But the vowel e before ng changes regularly in 
Middle English to i, Anglo-Saxon strenge, for example, becoming " string." 
Thus England, English became Ingland, Inglish and were so written for a 
time. Later this phonetic spelling was " reformed " to agree with the 
original Anglo-Saxon spelling, Eng- , altho the pronunciation has re- 
mained Ing. These two words are the only ones in English in which 
the combination eng is pronounced ing. 



THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 23 

5. The Civilization of the Anglo-Saxons. At 

the time of their arrival in England the Anglo-Saxons 
were a heathen people, worshipping the gods Thor and 
Woden, and the many other divinities of the Teutonic 
mythology and religion. They were seamen and war- 
riors, and gained a large part of their livelihood, like the 
Danes of a later period, by making plundering expedi- 
tions upon the coasts of neighboring countries. With 
their settlement in England, however, a great change 
came over this wild and barbarous people. Having now 
a rich and fertile land in their possession, they were no 
longer impelled to live by robbery and violence, but 
settled down to the peaceful occupations of farming and 
raising sheep and cattle. They soon became rich, and 
with this increase in wealth naturally came a greater 
development of the arts and of the more humane aspects 
of life. The greatest civilizing influence, however, to 
which they were subjected was that of Christianity, in- 
troduced to them by the Roman missionary Augustine, 
and his assistants, in the year 597. The response to 
Augustine's preaching was immediate and enthusiastic, 
and in a short time the whole of Anglo-Saxon England 
became Christian. Gradually, also, the newcomers 
worked out a political system, and from being a discon- 
nected group of tribal kingdoms or states, they became, 
in the time of Alfred and his successors, a nation in the 
true sense of the word, with one king and a strongly 
centralized government to hold them together. Their 
speech was, of course, Germanic, and it was closely related 
to that spoken in Germany and other parts of northern 
Europe (see pp. 46-50). In course of time this speech also 
became the vehicle for literary expression, both in verse 



24 MODERN ENGLISH 

and in prose. As is almost always true of the begin- 
nings of a national literature, Old English poetry pre- 
ceded prose. As early as the beginning of the seventh 
century Old English poetry was probably composed and 
written down in England, altho all the manuscripts which 
have been preserved to modern times are copies which 
date from a period considerably later. Most of this 
poetry is highly traditional in character ; for altho the 
Anglo-Saxons by this time had generally turned to 
quiet agricultural and pastoral pursuits, their poetry 
nevertheless is very warlike in tone; and altho they 
had long since ceased to follow the water extensively, 
the sea, its dangers and its attractions, is one of their most 
frequent poetic themes. This is true not only of their 
native heroic poetry, as for example the great epic poem 
Beowulf, which is the most important literary monument 
of the Old English period that has come down to us, but 
also of the later poetry of the school of Ceedmon, written 
about the middle of the seventh century, and of the 
school of Cynewulf, written about the middle of the 
eighth century, which is strongly under Christian influ- 
ence and the subject matter of which is Christian story 
and legend. This poetry also is cast in the old epic 
warlike mould of the earlier native verse. The expla- 
nation of this is to be found in the fact that all Old Eng- 
lish poetry is popular in its origins — that is, it goes 
back to the early warlike periods of the race when poetry 
was handed down by oral tradition from minstrel to 
minstrel. And as poetry is always very conservative, 
it is natural that when the period of written literature 
began the old poetic traditions and conventions should 
be preserved by the side of much that was new. The 




latter bfucop* JhtcotuAitojt afunew<u33C?|wA*v 
pi^CAj^bjti'Txme/iqtcyft:. J\v3eUttnp htc ^^h 
T&f cotHAJi ptj><ui of yaa>un*xr\ib Un^u jxijrit 

up* J}nqvb<s&e jxcrcDif )f In&jvnioftDnyuntiit* ac 
VnttotW foeom l^n«:f^anmcy<c&on jxtj^ccaf* 
ye coy tna^Dtv J> ca1> tya&qtt' ju&ljp l<tjum* Vej? tr<m 
of>qt cjlati^ heft be eajtmv If qtytnAjpn aq&utn yf- 
3cpU<i#«*j3tf bpLecy y&fixxvc.yt&f fukumt<t&* jjf 
5? btctuaym ^yatt^pui^a-fqtdon J^ytfaamy 
pqifcon Jnj 4 t<tno noftfc<m ymjto/j juj*att*ea|to Ijtc ncj* 
6 on bjttraf i rtw ye <qt cpcfcon • Auo Jm, ^ybtaT beom <d><? 
don j>tf <cr7tarcum. cm^^cttalb ff In yatjionbcoft/ 
kync ntt 44, on J>*> jnf wolf*-* Jfm button JUt Utrgt. 




xtyitn yttrqia «ji J^f>e qujfc pejte *ceroieb '-pi? tulr 
fomann k*q*e}ie nui |)tw5 etacn5tt fctptt/^e pobifc 
Vjiircerte* Pep Ijefef <epofb ^e bated tmk -v^imimiua 
3tf a>lrte>j mtcebte b *el Tjtffjeftef pppt*s^e*j y&he 

The Old English Chronicle 

From the Bodleian manuscript, Laud 636. 

(For description, see Appendix.) 



26 MODERN ENGLISH 

great body of Old English poetry is preserved in three 
volumes, or codexes, of miscellaneous content, Manu- 
script Junius XI in the Bodleian Library at Oxford ; 
the Vercelli Book, found in the year 1822 in an out-of- 
the-way library at Vercelli, Italy, where it is still pre- 
served; and the Exeter Book, the property of Exeter 
Cathedral in England. 

Old English prose, on the other hand, the body of 
which was not written until the ninth century and 
later, is completely under the dominance of the new 
order of thought. There is nothing primitive and tra- 
ditional about the prose, but, on the contrary, it is all 
distinctly Christian in tone and, for its period, very 
modern. It consists mainly of historical, philosophical, 
and religious or exegetical writings, and centers chiefly 
about the name of Alfred, who died in 901, and of iElf- 
ric, who died near the close of the Old English period 
about the year 1020. One of the most important prose 
documents is the Old English Chronicle, the earliest 
attempt at the consecutive writing of history in the 
English tongue. It was probably compiled under the 
direction of King Alfred about the middle of the ninth 
century, but it was continued in various forms by later 
hands, the Laud version, of which the opening is here 
reproduced, coming down as late as the middle of the 
twelfth century. 

On the whole one must say that between the arrival 
of Hengest and Horsa in 449 and the close of the Old 
English period with the coming of William the Con- 
queror in 1066, the Anglo-Saxons had developed a 
relatively high civilization. They were well governed, 
they had an enlightened religion, they cultivated learn- 



THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 27 

ing and letters. In some of the arts, for example the 
making of enameled jewelry, they were famous, and 
the embroidery of ecclesiastical garments done by the 
Anglo-Saxon women had even a Continental reputation. 
The people lived in comfort and often in luxury, some 
of the satires of the times showing that then, as always, 
extravagance in dress and the table accompanied pros- 
perity. One must not think, therefore, of the Old 
English period as barbarous and uncivilized. It was 
indeed the period of the beginnings of English speech 
and English literature, but even in their beginnings 
our language and literature afford much that may and 
should be studied, not only for its historical interest, 
but also for its intrinsic wisdom and beauty. 

6. The Danish Invasions and the Danish Con- 
quest. In the midst of their peaceful development, 
however, the Anglo-Saxons were called upon to meet a 
great danger. History repeated itself ; for just as the 
weakened Britons several centuries before had yielded to 
the attacks of the Jutes, Angles, and Saxons, so now 
these latter, also weakened by the refining influences of 
civilization and by the gradual decay of their warlike 
habits, were compelled to meet the advances of certain 
kinsmen of theirs from the Continent, the Danes. The 
method of the Danish invasions was practically the same 
as that of the original Anglo-Saxon invasion. They first 
came on marauding expeditions, returning each time to 
their own country. About the year 850, however, they 
began a campaign of conquest and settlement, and, in a 
short time, they gained control of all England except the 
little kingdom of Wessex, south of the Thames, which 
was held and defended by the heroic Alfred. After 



28 MODERN ENGLISH 

Alfred's death in 901 his son and successor Edward, and 
after Edward, Alfred's grandson iEthelstan, succeeded 
in winning back the greater part of England from the 
Danes. But this success was only temporary, for, in 
the reign of iEthelred the Unready (978-1016), the 
Danes and Northmen came over to England in ever- 
increasing numbers and gained possession of the en- 
tire land. 

In the year 1017 Cnut became king of England, 
and a Danish king occupied both the English and 
Danish throne at the same time. Cnut was succeeded by 
his son Hardacnut (1039-1042), and Hardacnut was 
succeeded by Edward the Confessor (1042-1066), in 
whose long and peaceful reign the Dane and Anglo-Saxon 
in England became fused into one people. Closely 
related in blood and speaking languages which had a 
great deal in common, the two peoples, the conquered 
and the conquerors, readily united. With that remark- 
able vitality which has always characterized it, the Anglo- 
Saxon language succeeded in crowding out the Danish, 
and tho modified in some respects by the influences 
to which they had been subjected, it was an English 
language and an English people that arose again out 
of the Danish Conquest. 

7. The Norman Conquest. After the coming of 
the Anglo-Saxons to Britain in the fifth century, un- 
doubtedly the event most far-reaching in its later effect 
upon the speech and the institutions of the people who 
inhabited the island was the Norman Conquest under 
William the Conqueror in 1066. The Danish Conquest 
had not been without its effect; but owing to the close 
relationship in blood and speech that existed between the 



THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 29 

Anglo-Saxons and the Danes, and the consequent ease 
with which they fused into one people, the Danish 
addition to the English population may be regarded 
rather as strengthening the original stock than changing 
it or turning it in new directions. The Norman Con- 
quest, however, was entirely different; for it not only 
succeeded after a time in imposing a new social and 
political system upon the English people, but even in 
putting the English language in the second place tempo- 
rarily and in profoundly affecting it permanently. The 
Normans who came to England in the train of William 
spoke Norman French, a dialect of the French language 
spoken in the province of Normandy. By birth and 
descent, however, they were not primarily Franks, but 
were nearly related to those Teutonic Danish and Scan- 
dinavian tribes who, in the reign of iEthelred, had be- 
come masters of England. The name Norman is merely 
a contraction of Northman, and the Normans were Scan- 
dinavian seafarers who had settled in northern France 
just as, and at the same time that, the Danes and North- 
men were settling in England. Like their kinsmen in 
England, the Northmen in France gave up their native 
speech, and as the former had accepted English, so 
they accepted French. We have, therefore, the curious 
spectacle of a people of the same blood producing all 
the effect of a foreign race upon their kinsmen, merely 
because of a difference in language — a striking illustra- 
tion of the fact that speech is thicker than blood. But it 
should be remembered that with the French language 
the Normans had imbibed all the ideas and ways of 
thinking of the French, and consequently had become 
as much French as the Franks themselves. 



30 MODERN ENGLISH 

The first effect of the Conquest upon England was 
to place Normans in the positions of authority in the 
country, and thus to make French the language of the 
court and the ruling classes. But there is no indication 
that William or any of his successors attempted to 
coerce the native English-speaking population into using 
French, and at first the growth of the Norman French 
influence upon English was very slow. There is every 
reason to believe that if the relations between France and 
England had ceased with the Conquest, it would have 
been but a short time before the Norman French were as 
completely fused with the English as the Danes had be- 
come. But the Norman French influence upon Eng- 
lish, altho it was at first slow, was increasing. French 
was not forced upon the English by any edict of law, but 
its use was encouraged by an even more powerful force, 
social custom. As the language of the ruling class, 
French came to be regarded as the polite and cultivated 
language. Instruction was, after a time, no longer given 
in English, but those who studied at all, studied French, 
and, if any other language, Latin. Even when Normandy 
was lost to England in the year 1204, and later when, in 
the middle of the century, the separation between the 
two countries became more complete by the decrees of 
King Louis IX of France and Henry III of England, 
the latter prohibiting Englishmen from holding estates 
in Normandy, and the former prohibiting Normans from 
holding estates in England, the cultivation of French 
continued. In spite of these decrees, there must have 
been a continual freshening of the stream of influence by 
the passing back and forth of Frenchmen, not only Nor- 
mans but Frenchmen of other parts of France, to and 



THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 31 

from England. The ties of blood could not be disre- 
garded, even tho political conditions had changed. 
Another main reason for the increasing influence of 
French upon English is to be found in the way in which 
Englishmen themselves came to regard French. The 
great body of Englishmen, the plain people who were 
little influenced by questions of fashion or education, 
never spoke anything but English. In the middle and 
the higher social, literary, and educational life, however, 
French acquired a special distinction. As the language 
of the ruling class its authority was naturally great. It 
was, moreover, commonly regarded as the politest lan- 
guage of Europe. The University of Paris, founded 
about 1170, was a place of resort for the scholars of all 
Europe. In the French language was written a great 
and growing literature, which other nations, the English 
especially, strove to imitate and absorb. It was the lan- 
guage also of polite intercourse, and the French capital 
was regarded not only as the seat of learning and of 
letters but also of refinement. There grew up thus in 
England a sort of Gallomania, as it may be called, a 
sense of respect and admiration for everything French 
because it was French. The height of this fashion was 
not reached until between the years 1300 and 1350, but 
it is this fashionable fad more than anything else that 
accounts for the powerful influence of French, in this 
early period, upon English. The French which was imi- 
tated in the fourteenth century was of course no longer 
Norman French, but the French of Paris. For it Eng- 
lish was even in danger for a time of being given up 
altogether as the language of literature and polite conver- 
sation. Those who continued to use English strove often 



32 MODERN ENGLISH 

to make it as near like French as possible. The imita- 
tion consisted in the borrowing of words and phrases, in 
the adaptation of French locutions and idioms to English 
usage, in the carrying over of French pronunciation to 
English words and even in such mechanical matters as 
spelling and handwriting. This use of French spelling 
and writing was in a way forced upon English. Since 
instruction in English was no longer given in the schools, 
but only in French, when one wished to write English 
the rules of French spelling and the style of French 
writing were simply transferred to English. The extent 
to which this Gallicizing of the English language was 
carried may be seen from the usage of the writer of the 
collection of saints' lives known as the Early South 
English Legendary, written about 1280. The author, or 
compiler, of this legendary, judging from the sentiments 
he expresses, was undoubtedly a patriotic Englishman, 
but his patriotism did not prevent him from following 
French fashions. Thus he seems to have pronounced 
his final tKs in English words like breath, death, etc., 
with a very faint and almost disappearing sound, as a 
Frenchman, to whom the th sound was strange and 
difficult, would have done. He even rimes words which 
have final th with words which do not, as for example, 
standeth and lande. 1 In imitation of French spellings 
like langue, morgue, etc., in which u is written after the g 
to indicate the hard quality of the sound, we have spell- 
ings such as jinguer for finger, kingue for king, and 
doggue for dog. Such spellings have not indeed entirely 
disappeared from English to this day. We still spell 
tongue, which is Old English tunge, and which accord- 

1 The final e of lande is of course pronounced. 



THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 33 

ingly should give Modern English tung, like lung; 
but both the o instead of u, and the u after the g, 
are survivals of these French spellings. Other in- 
stances of French gu in English words are guilt, guild, 
guess. 

Toward the middle of the fourteenth century, how- 
ever, this mad admiration for everything French began 
to suffer a decline and English began to rise again to 
the ascendency. Thus in 1362 it was decreed that all 
pleadings in the law courts in England should be made 
in English and not in French, and in the same year the 
English Parliament for the first time was opened with 
an English speech. French still continued to be culti- 
vated as a polite accomplishment, as indeed it is to this 
day, but from this time on English came to be more and 
more the language of literature and scholarship, as well 
as of the higher official and court life in England, and 
by 1500- (the end of the Middle English period) French 
had long ceased to be a serious rival of English. It 
should be remembered, however, that the English which 
thus came to the front again was very different from the 
jiterary English of the period before the French inva- 
sion. English had been so long neglected in favor of 
French that the feeling for it as a standard literary lan- 
guage had largely died out. It became for a time 
almost altogether a popular dialect. Consequently when 
English began again to rise into supremacy, it was this 
popular transformation of the older English that grad- 
ually assumed the rank of the new standard speech. The 
new English of the Middle English period is therefore 
the Old English of the Anglo-Saxon period as this latter 
was modified, first by the influence of French, and 



34 MODERN ENGLISH 

second by its passage through the transforming bath of 
the popular speech. 

8. Summary of the Influence of the Norman Con- 
quest. The influence of the Norman Conquest and its 
consequences upon the English language and the English 
people was profound. The racial distinction between 
Norman and Englishman was soon lost ; for the Norman 
when he had accepted England as his home, and even more 
when he had accepted English speech, became to all in- 
tents and purposes English. So completely were English 
and Norman assimilated that the third or fourth genera- 
tion after the Conquest must often have been unable to 
distinguish between the two elements of the population ; 
all were alike English. It was, however, a new English 
and a different England that gradually emerged after the 
Conquest. The speech and the whole body of thought 
of the nation, as a result of the direct and indirect 
influence of the Conquest, had undergone a remarkable 
change. In the first place, from a comparatively highly 
inflected language, English became a language of few in- 
flections (see pp. 77 ff.). The vocabulary of the language 
changed from a " pure " vocabulary, that is, one made up 
of words of the same linguistic stock, to a bilingual 
vocabulary, a vocabulary made up of Teutonic and 
Romance elements. The influence of French extended 
also to the phrasing of English, the grouping of words 
in the sentence, and in many ways, direct and indirect, 
which are difficult to follow, the new tendencies affected 
the whole tone of English thought and expression. The 
language after it has been subjected to the French 
influence is more supple ; it is the vehicle for more 
varied forms of expression than it had been before. In 



THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 35 

this it was merely following the change in the intellec- 
tual life of the English people, which after the Conquest 
was richer and touched many more sides of life than it 
ever had in the Old English period. This new spirit in 
English thought and letters received its fullest ex- 
pression in the writings of Geoffrey Chaucer (1340 (?)- 
1400). In Chaucer we have one who was not only a 
consummate artist in the use of language, but one also 
who, instead of the simple Old English themes of war- 
fare and religion, could sound the whole gamut of 
human emotion, love, pathos, humor, chivalry, the dra- 
matic instinct, the feeling for nature, in short all those 
shades of thought and feeling which the English heart 
is capable of experiencing or the English tongue of 
expressing. 

9. Modern England. The England of the close of 
the Middle English period was never again subjected to 
foreign invasion or to any great external racial influences. 
The thought and language of the people followed in 
general a peaceful line of development, accompanying 
the intellectual, industrial, and political growth of the 
country and of the world as a whole. The periods in 
modern times that have been most important for the 
history of the language are the Renascence period, from 
about 1500 to the death of Shakspere in 1616, in 
which the main purpose was that of " enriching " the 
language (see pp. 234 ff.); the period of Dryden 
(1631-1700) and Pope (1688-1744), the so-called 
Augustan period of English literature, in which much 
thought and attention was given to " polishing " and 
" purifying " the language ; and the most recent period 
of scientific, industrial, commercial, and political expan- 



36 MODERN ENGLISH 

sion, with its marvelous extension of the bounds of 
human thought and activity. Of these later influences 
perhaps the most significant are those which arise from 
the commercial and colonial expansion of the English 
people, and concerning these a word in especial may- 
be said. 

10. World English. History makes few appeals to 
the imagination stronger than that presented by the pic- 
ture of the little kingdom of England reaching out step 
by step until now its speech and its civilization circle 
the globe. Beginning with the union of Scotland and 
England under one king in 1603, and the conquest of 
Ireland under Elizabeth, the three countries, which by 
later acts of union formed the kingdom of Great Brtiain 
and Ireland, entered on a period of territorial and racial 
expansion that almost passes belief. By the settlement 
at Jamestown in 1607, and the later settlements in other 
parts of this . country, the national speech of the Conti- 
nent of North America was determined as English, a 
fact assured by the victory of Wolfe over Montcalm in 
1759. The separation of the colonies from the mother 
country in 1776, and the later opening of their gates to 
almost countless hosts of foreign immigrants have not 
availed to change the destiny of the English language 
in the United States. It is to-day as much the national 
speech of the country as it is of Canada or of England 
herself. 1 By the English settlement of Australia in the 

1 Perhaps the opinion of an Englishman on this point may be worth quot- 
ing. It is that of E. A. Freeman, the historian of the Norman Conquest, 
who, in his Impressions of the United States, London, 1883, speaks as follows : 
" To me the English-speaking Commonwealth on the American mainland is 
simply one part of the great English folk, as the English-speaking king- 
dom in the European island is another part. My whole line of thought 



THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 37 

early nineteenth century, the speech of that country 
also became English. In India, which was first con- 
quered b} r the English in the middle of the eighteenth 
century, the native speech of the country, already a 
highly developed language in which a great literature was 
preserved, has maintained its existence as the popular and 
native language. English is, however, the official lan- 
guage of the country, and is becoming more and more the 
language of business, commerce, and education. Other 
colonies, or offshoots of colonies, in which English is 
spoken, are South Africa, New Zealand, and Jamaica. 

The English language is coming to be used also more 
and more in countries which are not under English 
domination. It is to a large extent now the language of 
cosmopolitan intercourse in Europe, and there are few 
cities in which English is not sufficient on the main roads 
of travel to meet all a traveler's needs. English is thus 
slowly taking the place formerly filled by French. Eng- 
lish is also, to a considerable extent, the language of 
international commerce. Nautical and manufacturing 
terms, words derived from English social customs, from 
English sports and games, in Germany, France, and in 
other nations, are evidence of the growing prestige of 
English. 1 In the Far East, in China, Japan, and the 

and study leads me to think, more perhaps than most men, of the everlast- 
ing ties of blood and speech, and less of the accidental separation wrought 
by political and geographical causes. To me the English folk, wherever 
they may dwell, whatever may be their form of government, are still one 
people. . . . And so, to my mind at least, the thought of the true unity of 
the scattered English folk is a thought higher and dearer than any thought 
of a British Empire, to the vast majority of whose subjects the common 
speech of Chatham and Washington, of Gladstone and Garfield, is an un- 
known tongue." 

1 For lists of English words in German and French, see below, pp. 
255-257. 



38 MODERN ENGLISH 

neighboring islands, English occupies a unique position 
as an almost pan-Asiatic language. It is spoken in a 
corrupt and simplified form, known as Pidgin English, 
by merchants and sailors all along the coasts. It is also, 
however, the language of oriental diplomacy to a con- 
siderable extent, and it is significant that the modern 
educational movement both in China and Japan lays 
great stress on the cultivation of the English language. 
American possessions in the Philippines will serve to 
strengthen the position which English takes in the 
Far East. 1 

It has been estimated that the number of people 
speaking English as their native tongue is at present 
between one hundred and twenty and one hundred and 
thirty millions. The number who speak German is 
estimated at about eighty millions, and the number of 
Kussians at about the same. The numbers speaking 
French, Spanish, and Italian are estimated to be about 
fifty millions each. The rate of increase of English in 
the last century has been much greater than that of any 
other language. Since English is spread over such a 
wide extent of territory and is the language of rapidly 
growing and developing countries, it is altogether likely 
that this proportionate rate of increase will continue to 
be as great in the future as it has been in the past. 
Added to this the fact that English is the speech of an 

1 President (then Secretary) Taft, in a report submitted to Congress 
in January, 1908, calls attention to the fact that in the decade of the 
American occupation of the Philippine Islands, English had come to be 
spoken by a greater number of natives than had been the case with 
Spanish in the several centuries of Spanish occupation, — a striking illus- 
tration of the difference between English and Spanish methods of 
colonization. 



THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 39 

aggressive and venturesome people, that because of the 
simplicity of its structure and of its bilingual character 
as a Romance and a Teutonic tongue combined, it is the 
most easily acquired of all the languages of the western 
world, obviously English has a better chance than any 
other living language of becoming a world-language. 
Even the traditional national vices of insularity and con- 
ceit make for this result. The Engish and Americans are, 
undoubtedly, the greatest travelers of modern times, and 
the tenacity with which they hold to their native speech 
and native customs in foreign lands, while it often justly 
exposes them to the charge of complacency and provin- 
ciality, at the same time makes them effective distributors 
of English ideas and traditions. If Mohammed will not 
go to the mountain, then the mountain must come to 
Mohammed. That English will ever become the lan- 
guage of familiar daily intercourse in non-English 
countries is, of course, beyond the range of possibility. 
There is no indication that any country will ever alto- 
gether give up its native idiom for another, except 
through the gradual method of complete national and 
racial assimilation. But that English may become the 
language of international science, of international di- 
plomacy, of international travel and commerce, is quite 
within the limits of the possible. In the medieval pe- 
riod the various nations each learned one other language 
besides their native idiom for the purpose of interna- 
tional communication, and this second language was 
always Latin. Later the place of Latin tended to be 
taken by French. Within the last two or three genera- 
tions, however, French has begun to yield to English, 
and the universal language of the future is more likely 



40 MODERN ENGLISH 

to be English than any other of the tongues of modern 
or ancient Europe. 

11. Artificial Language. Of recent years a great 
deal has been said about a universal language. In all 
projects of this nature the attempt is to manufacture an 
artificial language which shall be free of the defects of 
existing languages, and which, because of its reason- 
ableness and economy, will induce the nations of the 
world to accept it in the place of their native speech. 
Artificial languages are not of recent origin. Such lin- 
guistic experiments have been made from the earliest 
times, some of them extremely ingenious, but none that 
ever realized in the slightest degree the hopes which 
their creators had for them. 1 In England the later 
seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries were pro- 
ductive of a number of artificial languages. One, as set 
forth by Sir Thomas Urquhart in a volume published 
in London in 1653, bore the alluring title Logopandec- 
teision, or an Introduction to the Universal Language 
digested into six books, published both for his own utili- 
tie and that of all pregnant and ingenious spirits. In 
our own day various " ingenious spirits " have promul- 
gated schemes of universal language, Volapuk, Esper- 
anto, Glanik, and others, literally to be numbered by 
the dozen, and all different. Why have none of these 
experiments succeeded? In the first place, because the 
attempt to foist an artificial language upon a people 
runs counter to all the principles of development that 
have governed the growth of a people. A native speech 
arises in a community as the intimate accompaniment 

1 For a full description of all these endeavors, see Couturat et Leau, 
Histoire de la langue universelle, Paris, 1903. 



THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 41 

of all its social customs. It is a gradual and largely 
unconscious growth, arising out of the immediate ex- 
periences of life. No speech, as we shall have continual 
occasion to point out, has ever submitted to the sys- 
tematizings of the theorist, no matter how reasonable 
and consistent these seemed to be. The attempt, there- 
fore, to bring about the acceptance of an artificial lan- 
guage on reasonable grounds is not likely to succeed, 
because of the simple fact that a language is not under 
the control of the direct reason. It is a common social 
possession, and a people fortunately does not, and can- 
not, change its social customs and habits by a sudden 
act of will. Moreover, one may doubt whether an arti- 
ficial language, the best that can be devised by an indi- 
vidual or a group of individuals, ever can be as good 
as a natural language. A natural language which has 
developed through thousands of years has acquired 
possibilities of expression, in thought and especially in 
feeling, which no language manufactured in cold blood 
can hope to equal. The wisdom of the nation is greater 
than the wisdom of an individual, and a national lan- 
guage sums up all the past wisdom of the people. Yet 
again, a universal language, to remain universal after 
it had once been accepted by all peoples, must not be 
allowed to change. But if anything can be learned 
from the history of language, it is just this, that all 
languages are continually subject to change, and that 
nothing can prevent them from changing. The advo- 
cates of a universal language must accordingly not only 
perforin the initial miracle of getting their language 
accepted, but they must then perform the second mir- 
acle, a continuous one, of keeping that language per- 



42 MODERN ENGLISH 

manent and fixed. In short, no artificial language, no 
matter how skilfully it is constructed, is likely ever to 
extend beyond the small group of theorists with whom 
it originates, and these will continue to pursue it only 
until their attention is attracted to some more divert- 
ing theory. The way languages spread is not through 
theory, but through their use. And the reason why the 
English language is one of the most widely distributed 
of the modern world, is that men who have spoken 
English have made their way to all corners of the earth, 
have carried with them their ideals of life and conduct, 
and, with these ideals, the speech in which they find 
expression. Artificial languages are well enough as 
playthings for "ingenious spirits," but a real language 
is formed in the market places and by the firesides of 
a living world. 

If, on the other hand, an artificial language is devised 
only for the expression of simple and impersonal ideas, 
such as might arise in international, commercial, or even 
scientific communication, then the matter becomes im- 
portant only to a relatively small number of people. An 
artificial language of such kind is of not much more sig- 
nificance than a cable code or a system of signals. Most 
of the languages which have been fashioned for such 
purposes have been constructed on the basis of Latin, 
as, for example, the at present much exploited Esper- 
anto. Latin is chosen as the basis because it is, in one 
form or another, a natural inheritance of all southern 
Europeans, it forms a large part of the English vocabu- 
lary, and third, it is the language which most edu- 
cated persons are likely to know — or to have known - — 
besides their native speech, if they know any. But 



THE ENGLISH PEOPLE 



43 



obviously, if you do not know Latin, and it is hardly a 
warrantable assumption that everybody knows Latin, 
you must first learn it, if you want to apply it to the 
understanding of an artificial language based on Latin. 
One might thus have to learn Latin, supposedly a more 
difficult language, in order to prepare the way for learn- 
ing an easy, artificial language. But no artificial lan- 
guage has yet been made effective for international, 
scientific, or business communication, and it is not only 
doubtful if it can be, but also if it were made generally 
effective, whether more would not be lost than would be 
gained. Certainly an artificial language would be harm- 
ful if it should in any way prevent or limit the study of 
the natural languages. There is an old saying that a 
man is as many times a man as he has languages. No 
artificial language will ever take the place of a knowl- 
edge of the natural languages; at most it can only 
make the undiscriminating satisfied with an inadequate 
substitute. 



Ill 

THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE 

1. The Classification of Languages. One of the 

important results of the modern study of language has 
been the classification of the various languages of the 
world into groups according to their relationships . 
Altho the science of language has not been able to 
confirm the Scriptural story of the original creation of 
language, nor, as yet, even to arrive at any altogether 
satisfactory theory of the beginnings of speech, it never- 
theless has done a great deal in discovering lines of evo- 
lution and development in those languages of which we 
have record. It has discovered that there has been a 
continual change and growth in language, that the lan- 
guages of modern times are each of them a historic 
product which developed slowly and regularly out of 
preceding stages. Moreover, it has shown that many 
apparently dissimilar languages are really closely related 
and are the descendants of some single original stock. 
It has thus divided languages into families. 

2. The Indo-European Family of Languages. 
One of the largest and most carefully studied groups or 
families of languages is that known as the Indo-European 
or Indo-Germanic family. This group comprises certain 
of the languages of Asia and practically all the languages 
of Europe. The original unified Indo-European lan- 
guage from which they are all theoretically derived is no 



THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE 45 

longer in existence. Its former existence is inferred, 
however, from the comparative study of the various 
Indo-European languages, since no theory serves so well 
to explain the many similarities which exist among them 
as the theory of a common origin. It should not be for- 
gotten, however, that the theory of a common original 
language from which the various Indo-European lan- 
guages were derived does not carry with it the theory of 
a common and single racial ancestry of all the Indo- 
European peoples. In the course of its development the 
primitive Indo-European speech undoubtedly imposed 
itself upon peoples of widely different race, very much 
as the branch languages, French or English, have done 
in later periods. We accept, therefore, a common speech 
ancestry for the Indo-European peoples, but not neces- 
sarily a common race ancestry. The period and the 
place in which this common original language was spoken 
are matters of very uncertain inference, and, indeed, are 
matters of comparatively slight importance. It concerns 
us much more to know the history, the changes and de- 
velopments which have brought about the differentia- 
tion of the various languages of which we have specific 
knowledge. These languages have been carefully studied, 
so that now we are enabled to classify them according 
to their branches and subdivisions in an orderly fashion. 
The following is a list of the main members of the family, 
beginning with the languages farthest east in Asia and 
proceeding thence in order to the languages of western 
Europe : 

1. Indo-Iranian. This branch is subdivided into (a) the 
Indian languages, including Sanskrit, the ancient literary 
language of India, and Prakrit and Pali, the modern native 



46 MODERN ENGLISH 

dialects of India ; and (6) the Iranian languages, including 
Persian and Avestan in their various periods, besides several 
other languages of the tablelands of Central Asia. 

2. Armenian, spoken in parts of Asia Minor. 

3. Greek, which may be subdivided into the various Greek 
dialects, Ionic, Attic, Doric, etc. 

4. Albanian, spoken in the limited region of Albania, 
north of Greece. 

5. Italic. The main language of this branch is Latin, from 
which are derived the modern Romance languages, French, 
Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, and Provengal, and several 
other less known languages besides. 

6. Celtic. This branch may be subdivided into Gallic, 
the language of the people of ancient Gaul, of which little is 
known ; British, the language of the original inhabitants of 
Britain; Welsh, the language of Wales ; and Gaelic, includ- 
ing the language of the Scotch Highlands, Irish, and Manx. 

7. Teutonic or Germanic. This branch, the one we are 
particularly interested in, falls into three main subdivisions, 
as follows : 

(a) East Germanic, the main dialect of which is Gothic, 

known chiefly from fragments of a translation of 
the Bible, made in the fourth century by Ulfilas, 
the bishop of the West Goths. 

(b) North Germanic, including Icelandic, Norse, Swed- 

ish, and Danish. 

(c) West Germanic, including the following languages : 

I. English, in its various periods of Anglo-Saxon, or 

Old English, Middle English, and Modern English. 

II. Frisian, in the two periods of Old and Modern 
Frisian. 

III. Franconian, the chief modern representatives of 
which are the languages of Holland and Flanders. 

IV. Low German, the modern representative of 
which is Plattdeutsch. 



THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE 47 

V. High German, in its three periods of Old High 
German, Middle High German, and New High 
German, the language of modern Germany. 
8. Balto-SUivonic. This branch falls into two main divi- 
sions (a) the Baltic languages, including Old Prussian, Lithu- 
anian, and Lettic ; and (b) the Slavonic languages, including 
Russian, Bulgarian, Illyrian, Bohemian, and Polish. 

3. The Principles of Classification of Languages. 

The question arises, How do we know that these lan- 
guages are related ? What are the points of difference 
and resemblance which justify us in holding together the 
languages of the Indo-European family in a single group, 
and at the same time in dividing this group into the 
eight branches indicated above, with their further sub- 
divisions? In answering the question, it should be 
noted, first, that the Indo-European family is consti- 
tuted a group apart from the other languages of the 
world by certain features which all the languages of the 
family have in common, but which are unknown to lan- 
guages outside the group. Thus, first of all, the lan- 
guages of the Indo-European family are all inflectional 
in structure, that is, they indicate the relations which 
words bear to each other in the sentence by the use of 
case, gender, number, tense, voice, and other endings. 
This seems to those whose native speech is inflectional 
such a natural characteristic of language that it is often 
supposed that all languages make use of this device. 
Such is not the case, hoAvever, and there are certain lan- 
guages, like the Chinese, which have no inflection at 
all, and others, like the Turkish, which have a kind of 
inflection that is so different from our kind of inflection 
that it has to be put into an entirely separate class from it. 



48 MODERN ENGLISH 

In the second place, it has been found that the lan- 
guages of the Indo-European family have a considerable 
number of words in common that are not found in other 
languages, and the number and the character of these 
words are so significant as to lead one almost necessarily 
to the inference that they are a common inheritance from 
a common original stock. The study of the languages 
of the Indo-European family from the point of view of 
their sounds and of their syntax confirms the results of 
the study of vocabulary and inflection, and makes un- 
avoidable the conclusion that we have in them a group 
of closely and mutually related languages. 

The method by which the division of the family into its 
branches has been obtained is similar to that which deter- 
mined the classification of the family as a whole. It has 
been found that, altho all the branches of the family 
have certain characteristics in common, which hold them 
together as a family, at the same time each branch has 
its own individual characteristics, due to the special de- 
velopment it has followed and the special influences to 
which it has been subjected. It would carry us too far 
at present to attempt to show all the special characteris- 
tics of each branch, for example, how Greek differs from 
Latin and how Celtic differs from both ; all we can do is 
to point out the main characteristics which distinguish 
the Teutonic or Germanic branch, the one in which our 
special interest lies. 

4. The Teutonic Languages. The main character- 
istics which the Teutonic languages have in common as 
features distinguishing them from the other Indo-Euro- 
pean languages are four : (a) a regular shifting or change 
of consonants, known as Grimm's Law ; (b) the Ten- 



THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE 49 

tonic classification of the verb as strong and weak (or ir- 
regular and regular) ; (c) the twofold declension of the 
adjective as strong and weak ; (d) the Teutonic system 
of word-accent. The last three of these characteristics 
need only a word of explanation, but the importance of 
Grimm's Law makes it deserving of a more extended 
discussion, and we shall therefore leave it to the last. 

A comparison of the Modern English verb, which is 
representative of the Teutonic verb in general, with the 
Latin as representative of the original Indo-European 
verb, will show the distinguishing features of the Teu- 
tonic verbal system. The English verb consists of two 
classes, the weak, or regular verb, which forms its past 
tense by adding d, or ed (sometimes assimilated to t) to 
the present or infinitive stem, as for example, walk, 
walked, walked; and second, the strong, or irregular 
verb, which forms its tenses by an internal change of 
the radical vowel of the word, as in the verb sing, sang, 
sung. The Latin verb, on the other hand, falls into a 
number of different classes, dependent to be sure on the 
formation of the principal parts, but in which can be 
found no such simple principle of tense formation as that 
which distinguishes the English verb. 

The twofold declension of the adjective has been lost 
in Modern English, inasmuch as the declension of the 
adjective (except for comparison) has been lost alto- 
gether. In the Old English period of the language, 
however, the full declension of the adjective was still 
maintained, as it is in New High German to this day. 
The simple principle of it is this — that when the adjec- 
tive is preceded by a demonstrative pronoun or a definite 
article, it is declined in one way, called weak, and when 



50 MODERN ENGLISH 

not preceded by a demonstrative pronoun or a definite 
article, it is declined in another way, called strong. 
Thus the phrase These young boys would take the weak 
form of the adjective in Old English, ~pas geongan enapan ; 
but the phrase Young boys would take the strong form, 
Geonge enapan. Latin, like Modern English, would take 
the same form of the adjective in both phrases. 

The Teutonic system of word-accent is sufficiently 
illustrated by Modern English usage. The rule there is 
that words of native origin usually take the stress on the 
root syllable, and this root syllable, except in the case of 
prepositional compounds, is almost always the first sylla- 
ble of a word. Moreover, the accent of English words is 
fixed, that is, a noun has the same accent, no matter 
what its case may be, and a verb keeps the same accent 
through all its various inflections. Latin, on the con- 
trary, which is again representative of the Indo-European 
accent, has what is called a free or variable accent, chang- 
ing with the various forms of a word. Thus the nomi- 
native is stressed imperdtor, but the accusative is imper- 
atdrem. The English derivative word, " emperor," has 
a fixed accent on the first syllable. 

5. Grimm's Law. This law is named Grimm's Law 
because it has become generally known through its for- 
mulation in the year 1822, by the German scholar, Jacob 
Grimm , who was not only the writer of the famous fairy 
tales, but was also a philologist of great industry and 
learning. It is called a law, but it is purely an empiri- 
cal law. That is to say, by observation the discovery 
was made that a definite set of linguistic phenomena 
operated in a certain regular way, and the generalization 
drawn from this observation was formulated as the law, 



THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE ' 51 

or rule, of the phenomena. This kind of law does not 
imply that the phenomena must act in a certain way, 
that there is a compelling law-giver or power back of the 
law which controls its action. It simply states what 
does happen, or what appears to our observation to hap- 
pen. The ultimate explanation of the cause of the series 
of phenomena known as Grimm's Law is one that, so 
far, has escaped the scientific students of language. The 
facts as they are we accept because we observe them, but 
no satisfactory theory in explanation of these facts has 
yet been brought forward. 

The phenomena which are the facts upon which 
Grimm's Law is based are certain regular changes in 
sounds. It was observed that where Indo-European 
words (as represented say by Greek or Latin) appeared 
with certain consonants, the same word in the Teutonic 
languages appeared with different consonants, always, 
however, according to a regular scheme of equivalents. 
Thus Indo-European p became regularly Germanic/, 
and d became regularly t ; the relation of English foot to 
Greek 7roS-o? (pod-os) is therefore obvious. Other illus- 
trations of the change of p tof are Latin pater, English 
father ; Latin pettis, English fell. The change of Indo- 
European d to t is further illustrated by English tooth, 
Latin dent-is ; English ten (Old English tigon), Latin 
decern. Another regular change, which has been illus- 
trated by the word-pairs English father, Latin pater, and 
English tooth, Latin dent-is, is that of Indo-European t 
to Teutonic ih. Further illustrations are Latin tres, 
English three; Latin tenuis, English thin; Latin tu, 
English thou. Another regular change is that from 
Indo-European c to Teutonic h, as in Latin corn-us, Eng- 



52 MODERN ENGLISH 

lish horn; Latin coll-is, English hill. Illustrations of 
these changes might be increased indefinitely. Instead 
of adding others, however, it will suffice to make a gen- 
eral statement of all the consonants affected by the law 
and their correspondences. They may be grouped as 
follows : 

The Indo-European labial consonants bh, 6, p became re- 
spectively the Teutonic consonants 6, 79, /. 

The Indo-European dental consonants dh, d, t became re- 
spectively the Teutonic consonants d, t, th. 

The Indo-European palatal and guttural consonants gh, g, 
k (c), became respectively the Teutonic consonants g, 7c, h. 

It should be understood, of course, that this is a very 
general statement of Grimm's Law, and that, as thus ex- 
pressed, it is open to numerous exceptions and to the 
qualifications of some important sub-laws. Moreover, it 
should be remembered in tracing back English words 
to their cognates in the other Indo-European languages 
which are not subject to this shifting of consonants, as for 
example, Latin, that these other languages may also have 
had each its own peculiar development in its consonant 
system which may serve to obscure the simple opera- 
tion of the law. It is also apparent that only those Eng- 
lish words which are of native origin, that is, only that 
half of our bilingual language which is Teutonic and 
not late borrowed Romance, can be subject to Grimm's 
Law. Despite its various restrictions and qualifications, 
however, Grimm's Law is one of the most valuable lin- 
guistic principles which we possess. It enables us not 
only to group the Teutonic languages together, but also 
often to determine the history and etymology of the vo- 
cabularies of the various Teutonic languages, to tell 



THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE 53 

what words are native and what are foreign. Moreover, 
the study of Grimm's Law has carried in its wake the 
discovery of many other linguistic laws and principles 
which are of the greatest interest and importance, but 
which cannot be entered into at present. 

6. English and German. The exact relation be- 
tween Modern English and Modern German should be 
clearly understood. Of course one is not derived from 
the other, as is so frequently the popular belief. The 
number of words in the German language which were 
directly borrowed from English is comparatively small, 
most of them having been taken over of recent years, 
and the same is true of the German words in the Eng- 
lish language. 1 The two languages are, however, of the 
same stock, and they resemble each other because they, 
like the other Teutonic languages, are derived from 
some common original Teutonic mother speech, which 
is no longer in existence and which has left no written 
records, but the existence of which we infer from the 
comparative study of the various Teutonic languages, 
just as we infer the former existence of a parent Indo- 
European speech for all the different Indo-European 
languages. German and English, therefore, have much 
in common because they inherit their language from a 
common ancestral speech. They differ, on the other 
hand, from each other, because throughout centuries of 
development each has followed its own course and has 
been subject to its own special influences. The most 
important special development of German, which differ- 
entiates it from English, is what is known as the second 
shifting of consonants. English and German alike are 

1 For a list of these words, see below, pp. 255-256. 



54 MODERN ENGLISH 

subject to Grimm's Law, or the first shifting of conso- 
nants, but the German consonants which resulted from 
the operation of Grimm's Law have undergone a further 
change, a shifting which is peculiar to that language, 
and which is one of the things which justify the linguist 
in setting off that language as a special subdivision of 
the Teutonic language. Thus where English has p, 
German usually has / or pf in cognate words, as in Eng- 
lish help, German helfen; English ship, German schiff ; 
English sleep, German sehlafen ; English sheep, German 
schaf ; English sap, German sapf. Likewise where Eng- 
lish has d German usually has t, as in the following 
pairs of words : dead, tot (formerly spelled todt) ; deaf, 
taub ; deal, theil (the h being silent in pronunciation); 
do, thun ; cold, halt; hold, halt en ; and so with many 
others. English t frequently appears as German z or tz, 
as in to, zu ; tin, zinn ; tooth, zahn ; tongue, zunge ; write, 
ritzen ; cat, Jcatz ; sit, sitzen. English v appears in cog- 
nate German words as b, as in over, ober ; leave, (er-) 
lauben ; grave, grab ; shove, schieben ; love, Hebe ; Jcnave, 
knabe. 

7. Periods of English. From the seventh century, 
the earliest period of which we have any knowledge of 
recorded forms of English, the language has been subject 
to constant change. In this it merely partakes of the 
nature of language in general, for speech, so long as it 
is living in actual unconstrained use, is continually 
growing and developing. It is only in the so-called 
" dead " languages that language can be drawn up into 
a system once and for all. From the earliest Indo- 
European times, therefore, down to the present day, 
it is safe to say that the language which we now know 



THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE 55 

as English has been ceaselessly, tho often impercepti- 
bly, dropping old and assuming new forms. Since 
this process has been unbroken from the beginning, it is 
in a way illogical to divide the history of the language 
into periods. There have been, however, certain times 
at which changes took place more rapidly than at others, 
owing to special attendant circumstances, and provided 
we keep always in mind that the dates by which we 
divide a language into periods are more or less arbi- 
trarily chosen, they will serve the convenient purpose of 
indicating roughly the large general divisions in the de- 
velopment of the language. In this way we may indi- 
cate three great divisions in the history of English : 

I. The Old English, or Anglo-Saxon period, beginning 
with the coming of the Angles, Jutes, and Saxons to 
England and ending with the Norman Conquest in 
1066, or better, about 1100. 
II. The Middle English period, extending from 1100 to 
about 1500. 
III. The Modern English period, extending from 1500 to 
the present time. 

The language in each of these periods is distinguished 
by developments which are to a large extent characteristic 
of the respective periods. These developments affect 
all the various sides of the language, — sounds, inflec- 
tions, words, and syntax, and it will be the purpose of 
the following chapters to give an account of the changes 
in the language from these several points of view. 



IV 

ENGLISH INFLECTIONS 

1. The Nature of Inflection. It has already been 
pointed out (pp. 47 ff.) that inflection is one of the 
distinguishing characteristics of the family of Indo- 
European languages. The extent to which these vari- 
ous languages make use of inflection differs greatly, 
and there is often considerable variation, as in English, 
even in the periods of one and the same language. 
Broadly defined, inflection is the change or variation 
in the forms of a word for the purpose of indicating 
corresponding variations in its meaning and use. This 
definition implies that there is a certain root element 
which remains constant, but which is given specific 
application and meaning by additions to this element. 
This definition, however, is too broad for the traditional 
use of the term inflection, since it includes not only 
inflection for person, number, case, gender, tense, and 
so forth, but also such word-changes as swift, adjective, 
to swift-ly, adverb. The term usually employed, how- 
ever, to designate such a change as that of swift to 
swiftly is derivation or composition. By composition 
one means the placing together of two word elements 
each of which has a more or less separate and inde- 
pendent existence. The degrees of this independence 
may vary greatly. A compound like house-boat is made 
up of two words, each of which may be completely 



ENGLISH INFLECTIONS 57 

independent. On the other hand the -ly of the com- 
pound swiftly, the -dom of kingdom, the -ness of kind- 
ness, are not really complete separate words. They 
have, however, more meaning as independent elements 
in the word than true inflections, as for example the 
plural -s of books, the preterite ending -ed in differed, 
and the participial ending -en in spoken. It is not 
always easy, in fact it is not always possible, to draw 
the line between composition and inflection, and it is 
altogether probable that a good many inflectional ele- 
ments are merely weakened forms of earlier composi- 
tional elements of words. The two things run into 
each other imperceptibly, and a hard and fast division 
between them cannot be made. It is best to regard 
inflection as the general term, including inflection proper 
and derivation, and to use the specific term derivation, 
or composition, for those instances in which the elements 
of a word are plainly felt to have separate existence. 1 

Inflection may be of three kinds, initial, internal, or 
end inflection. In former stages of the language initial 
inflection was used to form the past tenses of certain 
verbs, known as reduplicating verbs ; this was a method 
of tense formation similar to the use of augments in 
Greek. It has been completely lost in later English and 
is only very sparingly represented in Old English. A 

1 A definition of inflection is often made to the effect that inflection 
includes only those variations or changes in the form of a word for the 
expression of different uses within its own part of speech; when the part 
of speech is changed, then we have composition. But the noun king + dom 
gives kingdom, which is still a noun; man + hood, gives manhood, also a 
noun. Again the numeral adjective one by the addition of -ly becomes only ; 
the word only may be an adjective, as in the only man, or an adverb, as in 
//'/ only knew. Shall we call the change of one to only inflection when only 
is used as an adjective, and composition when it is used as an adverb? 



58 MODERN ENGLISH 

kind of initial inflection is used in Modern English to 
indicate gender, as in man-servant and maid-servant, cock- 
sparrow, hensparrow. It is better, however, to regard 
such words as compounds, or derivatives, since the two 
elements of which each is composed have separate exis- 
tence. The word woman, which looks as tho it were 
the feminine of man with the feminine inflectional sylla- 
ble W0-prefixed, is originally a compound word which has 
become obscured. It is Old English wif-, the Modern 
English " wife," + wi«w = wifeman. The words male and 
female also look like inflectional forms of the same word, 
but historically they are not. The word male comes 
through the French from the Latin masculus, a word of 
the same meaning. The word female comes from Latin 
femella, a diminutive of femina, "woman." This word 
should give in English the form femell, which indeed is 
the form that Chaucer and his contemporaries used. 
The word femell, however, became confused with male 
and the second syllable of it was supposed to be the 
same as male, hence the form female. The syllable 
fe-, consequently, altho it originally had no such value, 
is now practically felt to be a feminine forming inflec- 
tional prefix to male. 

Inflection in English is commonly, however, either inter- 
nal or end inflection. Examples of internal inflection are 
sing, sang, sung; man, men; tooth, teeth. The most 
general method of inflection in English consists in the 
addition of inflectional elements at the end of a word, 
as in (J) sing, (he) sings; cat, cats; walk, walked. 

There are three other ways of showing the different 
uses of a word which are not true inflections, but make- 
shifts to take the place of inflections. The first of these 



ENGLISH INFLECTIONS 59 

is the use of the mechanical device of the apostrophe in 
the possessive case, as in boy's, boys'; so far as the sound 
of these words is concerned they cannot be distinguished 
from the nominative and objective plural, boys, and the 
value of the apostrophe is purely visual. The second 
device is that of using altogether different words for the 
various values of a part of speech, as for example go, went, 
gone; am or is, was, been, for the tenses of the verb; 
bad, worse, worst; good, better, best, for the degrees of 
the adverb or adjective ; I, you, he for the persons of the 
personal pronoun. The third equivalent for true in- 
flection is the device of using a phrase as, for example, 
more swift, most swift in the comparison of the adjective 
and adverb; (he) has gone, (he) had gone, etc., in the 
conjugation of the verb. English has been driven to use 
these devices very extensively to make up for inflections 
which it has lost. 

2. English as a "Grammarless Tongue." The his- 
tory of English inflections has been one of continuous 
loss. As far back as we can go in the history of the 
English language we can trace a gradual breaking down 
of the inflectional system. And even when we arrive 
at the earliest periods of Old English, there are sure in- 
dications that the language is already in a transitional 
stage, and that the tendency towards inflectional loss in 
English is one that goes far back into the prehistoric 
periods of the language. This tendency toward inflec- 
tional loss is not to be regarded as a degeneration of the 
language. The language of less highly civilized peoples 
and eras is often more elaborately inflected than the lan- 
guage of a more highly developed people and civilization. 
Thus to-day the language of certain tribes of African 



60 MODERN ENGLISH 

savages is infinitely more complex in grammatical struc- 
ture than that of any of the European nations. In his 
speech, the savage makes use of a great deal of unneces- 
sary machinery, and, as is almost always true of the rude 
and uncultivated, he makes a tremendous physical effort 
in attempting to express the content of his mind. 

The development in the English inflectional system 
has, of course, been altogether unconscious, so far as the 
users of the language are concerned. The language 
changed to meet the needs of those who spoke it, and no 
conscious theory of improving the language by getting 
rid of unnecessary inflections has ever been in operation. 
Inflections were lost because, in the practical use of the 
language, men tended to express themselves as briefly as 
possible. In English, furthermore, the language has de- 
veloped freely and unrestrainedly from the earliest times 
down to the Modern English period. This would not 
have been the case, at least with literary English, if we 
had had a great classic literature in the Old English 
period, which was set up and retained as a model for all 
later periods, as classical Latin literature became the 
model for all later generations of Romans. If that had 
taken place our language would now probably have the 
comparatively elaborate Old English inflectional system, 
instead of the present Modern English one, which is 
almost completely devoid of inflection. 

The number of Modern English inflections is so small 
that they may be very briefly summarised. The only parts 
of speech which are capable of inflection are the noun, 
the pronoun, the verb, and for the single characteris- 
tic of comparison, the adverb and the adjective, altho 
comparison might just as well be called composition 



ENGLISH INFLECTIONS 61 

or derivation. Of these the noun inflects for number, 
singular and plural, and for one case, the possessive, 
singular and plural, the other cases being all alike. The 
personal pronoun inflects for three persons, for three 
genders, for two numbers, and in some forms for three 
cases, nominative, possessive, and objective. The other 
pronouns inflect only for number and case. The verb 
inflects more elaborately than the noun, but less elab- 
orately than the personal pronoun. The present tense 
usually has two forms, one for the third person, singular 
number, and another for all other uses of the present. 
There is a distinctive form for the past tense, which is 
the same, however, for all persons and both numbers. 
The past participle sometimes has a distinctive form 
(see, saw, seen), but usually it is the same as the form 
of the past tense {walk, walked, walked; bind, bound, 
bound). In a few instances, that is, be and were, the 
present and past of the verb to be, and the third person 
singular of the present tense of other verbs, there are 
special forms for the subjunctive mood; but these are 
rarely used. 

So few are the inflections of Modern English as com- 
pared with those, for example, of Latin or Greek, or 
even of Old English, the earlier stage of its own lan- 
guage, that it has been characterized as a "grammarless 
tongue." This characterization is approximately true 
of course only if we think of grammar as meaning the 
same thing as inflection. In Greek and Latin grammar, 
inflection, or accidence as it is sometimes called, does 
play a large part, inflection and the rules of concord 
being the two important divisions of classical grammar. 
Through its loss of inflections, however, English has 



62 MODERN ENGLISH 

also simplified its rules of concord, and it consequently 
does not present the same kind of grammatical system 
as the classical languages. That it is a " grammarless 
tongue," however, in the true sense of the word gram- 
mar, is not at all true. The language has its struc- 
ture and its rules of right and wrong, and it is as 
necessary to observe them as it was for Greek and 
Roman to observe their inflectional system and rules of 
concord. 

3. The Inflections of the Old English Period. It 
is convenient to divide the history of English inflections 
into three chronological periods, corresponding to the 
three great stages in their development. The first is the 
Old English period, from the earliest records to about 
1100 ; this is the period of full inflections. The second 
is the Middle English period, from 1100 to about 1500 ; 
this is the period of leveled inflections. The third is the 
Modern English period, from 1500 to the present time, 
and this is the period of lost inflections. The periods of 
course pass over into each other gradually, altho at 
the two main dividing lines, at 1100 and 1500, changes 
took place more rapidly than during the central portions 
of the periods. There is, therefore, both in the Old Eng- 
lish and in the Middle English period, a fairly stable and 
fixed central or classical form of the language which we 
shall briefly describe. 

The Old English is called the period of full inflections 
because the inflections of the language at that time were 
not only relatively more numerous than they were in 
later periods, but were also pronounced with a full and 
distinct sense of the values of the various vowels in the 
inflectional endings. Since the inflectional endings bore 



ENGLISH INFLECTIONS 



63 



no accent, it will be seen that this method of pronounc- 
ing the inflectional vowels is very different from the 
tendency of Modern English (or even of Middle Eng- 
lish), where we regularly obscure final unaccented 
syllables in pronunciation. One or two illustrations will 
suffice to make this point clear. In Old English a noun 
in the nominative singular might end in -a, as hunta, 
"hunter"; or -e, as tunge, "tongue"; or -u, as sunu, 
" son " ; or -0, as ivlenco, " pride." Now these various 
endings were all given distinctly and clearly the values 
of the vowels -a, -e, -u, and -0, and were not obscured 
and slurred as they would be in our Modern English 
pronunciation. The same principle holds true when the 
inflectional syllable consists of a vowel followed by a 
consonant or consonants. The noun start, u stone," has 
a genitive singular stanes and a nominative and accusa- 
tive plural stanas, each of which is clearly distinguished 
by the value of its vowel. In short, we may say that the 
inflectional ending was treated with a great deal more 
respect and consideration in the Old English period 
than in later periods. There was more feeling for it 
and consequently a stronger tendency making for its 
preservation. 

The tendency which kept the vowels of the inflec- 
tional syllables full and clear, served naturally to pre- 
vent the loss of inflectional endings. The extent of 
inflection in the Old English period may be briefly indi- 
cated, choosing for this purpose the West Saxon dialect 
in the early West Saxon period, that is, English between 
the years 800 and 900, in the central and southern parts 
of England. The noun inflected for three genders, 
masculine, feminine, and neuter, and gender in Old 



64 MODERN ENGLISH 

English, as in Modern German or Latin, was still gram- 
matical, not natural or logical, as it has become in 
Modern English. That is, gender in Old English refers 
to the way in which a noun is inflected, not necessarily 
to the sex of the person or object designated by the noun. 
Thus Old English nouns ending in -a are masculines, and 
this includes such names of inanimate objects as mona, 
" moon " ; noma, " name " ; steorra, " star." 2 The noun 
inflected also for two numbers, singular and plural. It 
inflected for five cases, nominative, genitive (from which 
is derived the modern possessive), dative (lost in Modern 
English), accusative (the modern objective), and instru- 
mental (also lost in Modern English). Furthermore it 
inflected for class or type of declension, there being two 
main types of noun declension, the strong and the weak, 
and each of these classes consisted of several sub-types 
or classes. The somewhat complicated state of affairs 
may be best represented by the following table of the 
different inflectional endings which the nouns of the 
various genders and types may take. Words which 
appeared in certain cases without any inflectional end- 
ing are indicated merely by the dash. Since the in- 

1 The distinction between the grammatical gender of Old English, 
based upon the forms of words, and the natural gender of Modern 
English, based upon the meanings of words, should be clearly appre- 
hended. In Old English, adjectives have gender as well as nouns, since 
they are inflected in forms to agree with their nouns. With the loss of 
inflections, Modern English has given up the distinctions of grammatical 
gender, and uses the term now for the much simpler and more natural 
purpose of indicating sex. This explains why Englishmen often find it 
difficult to understand why the possessive pronoun must be feminine in a 
French sentence like 11 a perdu safemme, " He has lost his wife." But the 
possessive sa is an adjective, and as such it must take the feminine form 
when it modifies a feminine noun, no matter what its antecedent may be, 
or what its logical meaning may be. 



ENGLISH INFLECTIONS 65 

strum ental is always the same as the dative in the 
noun, it is not mentioned specifically in the table. 

Singular. Plubal. 

Nominative -, -u, -a, -e, -o. Nominative -, -as, -u, -a, -e, -an. 

Genitive -es, -e, -an. Genitive -a, -ena. 

Dative -, -e, -an, -o. Dative -urn. 

Accusative -, -e, -an, -o. Accusative same as the nominative. 

An examination of this table will show that the inflec- 
tional sj^stem of the Old English noun is not distinctive 
for all uses, that the same ending has sometimes to do 
duty for various values of the noun. Thus the ending 
-e may appear in any case of the singular, or in the nomi- 
native or accusative plural ; and there are other endings 
also which have to be used several times, the ending -an, 
for example, being used five times. The most distinc- 
tive and characteristic endings are the -es of the genitive 
singular, which appears only in the genitive singular; 
-as, which appears only in the nominative and accusa- 
tive plural ; and -um, which is always the ending of all 
nouns in the dative plural. It will be seen later that 
these endings are just the ones that are important in the 
further development of the inflectional system. The de- 
clension of the strong masculine noun stdn, " stone " ; the 
strong feminine noun lar, " lore, learning " ; the strong 
neuter noun hof, " court " ; and the weak masculine noun 
steorra, " star " ; and the weak feminine noun tunge, 
" tongue," may be cited in illustration of the declension 
of five large groups of Old English nouns, altho these 
five are not exhaustive of all the different Old Eng- 
lish declensions. The declensions of stdn and steorra 
are typical of by far the greatest number of nouns in 
Old English. 

5 



66 



MODERN ENGLISH 







STRONG. 








SINGULAR. 




Plural. 






Masculine. Fern. 


Neu. Masculine 


. Fern. 


Neu. 


Nominative 


staa lar 


hof stanas 


lare 


hofu 


Genitive 


stanes lare 


hofes stana 


lara or larena 


, hofa 


Dative 


stane lare 


hofe stanum larum 


hofum 


Accusative 


staa lare 


hof stanas 
WEAK. 


lare 


hofu 




Singular. 




Plural. 




Masculine. 


Feminine. 


Masculine. 


Feminine. 


Nominative 


steorra 


tuage 


steorran 


tuagan 


Genitive 


steorraa 


tungan 


steorrena 


tungena 


Dative 


steorran 


tuagan 


steorrum 


tuoguai 


Accusative 


steorraa 


tungan 


steorraa 


tungan 



There are various minor declensions of the noun in 
Old English besides the above five types, but most of these 
have been more or less completely assimilated in later 
English to the type forms represented by stdn and 
steorra. Only one has left considerable traces in 
Modern English, nouns in which the plural number was 
formed by mutation of the radical vowel. For example, 
Old English fot, gos, mils, broc, etc., formed their plurals 
fit, ges, mys, brek, corresponding to Modern English 
foot, feet ; goose, geese; mouse, mice. The word broc has 
disappeared in the singular in Modern English, which 
should have brook; its plural is retained, however, in 
breeches, which has the old mutation of the vowel to 
indicate the plural, but which has also added the regular 
plural -s ending of nouns like stdn. Some other words 
which in Old English belong to this class of mutation 
plurals have been attracted completely into the larger 
class of regular nouns. Thus Old English boc, bee 
should give regularly Modern English book, with the 
plural beek, like goose, geese. But by analogy to the 



ENGLISH INFLECTIONS 67 

large class of plurals in -s without mutation of the vowel, 
beek was changed to boohs. 

The Old English adjective differs from the Modern 
English adjective in that it inflects for all those forms 
for which the noun inflects, for gender, number, case, and 
type or class, as strong and weak. The rules of concord 
also demand that an adjective shall agree in its inflection 
with the gender, number, and case of the noun which it 
modifies. The main inflections of the adjective, for all 
genders and types, are as follows : 



SlNGULAB. 






PLUBAL. 


Nominative -, -a, 


-e. 




Nominative -, -e, -a, -an. 


Genitive -es, -re, 


-an. 




Genitive -ra, -ena. 


Dative -um, -re, 


-an. 




Dative -um. 


Accusative -, -ne, 


-e, 


-an. 


Accusative same as the nominative. 



With the adjective should be grouped the definite 
article, for this part of speech in Old English is a real 
adjective, inflecting like the adjective and like the 
Modern German article, for gender, number, and case. 
The inflections of the article are as follows : 





Masculine. Feminine. 
se, " the " seo 


Neuter. Masculine 


Feminine. Neute 


Nominative 


pset 1 


Pa 


Genitive 


pses, "of the " psere 


paes 


para 


Dative 


paem, " to the " psere 


plem 


pam 


Accusative 


pone, "the" pa 


pset 


pa 


Instrumental 


py, " by or with the " 




... 



1 The symbol p, also written (5, (called " thorn ") is equivalent to ih ; the 
symbol ce (called the digraph) has the sound of Modern English a in hat, 
the value of Old English a, as for example in stdn, being the same as the 
a in Modern JLnglish. father. 



68 



MODERN ENGLISH 



The Old English personal pronoun differs mainly from 
the Modern English in that it has preserved remnants 
of an old dual number, the only survival in any period 
of English of an inflection which probably, in prehistoric 
stages of the language, appeared also in the noun, the 
adjective, and the verb ; and secondly, in that it has 
only one form for the second person, Sw, Modern Eng- 
lish " thou," with its various case forms. The dual 
number survives only in the personal pronoun of the 
first and second persons. The inflections of the Old 
English personal pronoun, followed in each case by its 
Modern English derivative or equivalent when it has 
one, are as follows: 



Fiest Person Singular. 

Nominative ic, " I " 

Genitive min, " mine 

Dative me, "me" 

Accusative me, "me" 



Second Person Singular. 

Nominative ftu, " thou " 

Genitive "Sin, " thine " 

Dative fte, "thee" 

Accusative fte, "thee" 





Dual. 




Dual. 


Nominative 


wit 


Nominative git 


Genitive 


uncer 


Genitive 


incer 


Dative 


unc 


Dative 


inc 


Accusative 


unc 


Accusative inc 


Plural. 




Plural. 


Nominative we, 


"we" 


Nominative 


ge, "ye" 


Genitive ure 


, or user, "our" 


Genitive 


eower, "your ; 


Dative ■ us, 


"us" 


Dative 


eow, "you" 


Accusative us, 


" - 


as" 


A ccusative 


eow, " you " 






Third Person Singular. 






Masculine. 


Feminine. 


Neuter. 


Nominative 


he, 


"he" 


heo, "she" 


hit, "it" 


Genitive 


his, 


"his" 


hiere, " her " 


his, "its' 


Dative 


him, 


"him" 


hiere, "her" 


him, " it " 


Accusative 


hine, 


"Liim " 


hie, "her" 


hit, "it" 



ENGLISH INFLECTIONS 69 





Plural. 






Mas. Fern. Next. 




Nominative 


hi, or hie, 


"they* 


Genitive 


hiera, 


"their" 


Dative 


him, 


" them " 


Accusative 


hi, or hie, 


" them " 



These forms of the personal pronouns were simplified 
in several ways in the Middle English period. In the 
first place the dual forms disappeared, and with them 
the last traces of the dual number in English. The 
form ie, since it generally stood in unstressed position, 
tended to assume a weakened form, which later became 
conventionalized in spelling as capital 1. 1 The genitives 
mm, 'Sin, persisted as mine, thine, but there also devel- 
oped forms without final -n, that is, my, thy, which were 
used before words beginning with a consonant, the full 
forms being used before vowels and in the absolute po- 
sition. The dative and accusative fell together under 

1 The use of the capital for the pronoun of the first person, nominative 
case, in English, a custom not shared by any other European language 
(cf. German ich, French je, Italian io, Spanish yo), is due to purely me- 
chanical reasons, and not, as it is sometimes invidiously said, to the ego- 
tism of the English people. The custom arose in the late Middle English 
period, when in order to distinguish the letter i in cursive writing, which 
as a single stroke of the pen might easily be mistaken as part of another 
letter, it was commonly written as J or I. The origin of the period over 
i is the same ; the period was used to indicate that this stroke of the pen 
over which it stood was the letter i, and not merely a preliminary stroke to 
some other letter. It was thus originally a mechanical device similar to 
that now in use in printing offices, where in manuscripts a stroke is placed 
over an n, i. e. n, and under a u, i. e. u, in order to prevent mistaking one 
for the other. With the invention of printing, the form I was carried 
over from writing as the symbol for the letter when standing alone, al- 
tho in the early days of printing both the capital and the small letter 
were thus used. Gradually, however, with the establishment of fixed con- 
ventions in printing and writing, the capital letter came to be the only 
recognized form for this purpose. For the importance of stress as affect- 
ing the development of a sound, see below, pp. 142-148. 



70 MODERN ENGLISH 

the forms me, thee, us, and you. Like the first person 
singular, because it was in the unstressed position, Old 
English us developed a weak form with short vowel, 
Modern English us, although regularly u should give 
ou (cf. Old English Ms, Mod. Eng. house, etc.). The 
forms of the third person were variously modified. The 
dative and accusative singular were simplified under 
one form, for the masculine him, the old dative, for the 
feminine her, likewise the old dative. The neuter dative- 
accusative form became hit, " it," the old accusative, the 
old dative, him, not being used here as the dative was in 
the masculine and feminine because of its identity with 
the masculine form. The genitive singular of the neuter. 
his, was also gradually discarded because of its identity 
with the genitive singular of the masculine, and in its 
place was developed a new genitive singular neuter 
formed by adding the regular -s ending of genitives to 
the uninfected form of the nominative. In all these 
developments it will be seen that the tendency was 
towards a limitation of the number, but also towards a 
stricter definition of the value of forms. Old English 
permitted identity of forms in different grammatical cat- 
egories, his, for example, for both masculine and neuter 
genitive; but the tendency, at least, of later English 
development has been in the direction of a single form 
for each grammatical category. This tendency was 
helped in the present instance by the change from gram- 
matical to logical gender. So long as gender was a 
purely grammatical distinction, as in Old English, one 
might use the same form for masculine and neuter; but 
when gender came to mean a real difference in the nature 
of the objects designated, as in Modern English, it was 



ENGLISH INFLECTIONS 71 

obviously necessary to have distinctive forms for the 
different genders. The plural forms did not persist 
because of their similarity in form to singulars, hi of 
the plural not being readily distinguishable from he of 
the singular, hiera from Mere, "her," and him being 
identical in singular and plural. For the Old English 
forms were consequently substituted the forms they, 
their, them, probably under the influence of the Scan- 
dinavian forms, which begin with th, and perhaps also 
partly out of recollection of the plural forms of the defi- 
nite article, which also begin with th. The first person 
singular of the feminine became she, in which there is 
probably to be seen an amalgamation of the Old English 
feminine article seo with the pronoun heo, which might 
otherwise have been confused with the masculine he. 

The adverb in Old English does not differ greatly from 
its use in Middle and in Modern English, in all three 
stages of the language being susceptible of inflection 
only for the purpose of showing degrees of comparison. 
Various inflections, however, which were lost in later 
English, were used in Old English with the power of 
forming adverbs. Thus the dative singular ending -e, 
added to an adjective formed an adverb, e. g., soft, ad- 
jective, softe, adverb ; the dative plural ending was simi- 
larly used, e. g., hwil, " time," Modern English " while," 
with the dative plural inflection, hwilum, was used with 
sense of Modern English "at times," "from time to 
time." The genitive singular ending -es also often had 
adverbial value, as in doeg, "day," doeges, "by day." 
With the gradual disappearance of inflections, these 
inflectional adverbs ceased to be used, their place being 
taken largely by the compositional adverb with -ly. 



72 MODERN ENGLISH 

The adverb in -urn persists, however, in the archaic form 
"whilom "; the -es adverb of genitive origin is not now 
distinguishable from the plural form. But in construc- 
tions like " Evenings is the best time to see him," the 
word " evenings " is a direct survival of the old genitive 
adverb construction. With the loss of final inflectional 
-e, adverbs like softe could no longer be distinguished 
from the adjective form soft This type of adverb 
formation also persists in Modern English in adverbs 
without ending, as in constructions like " Go slow " ; 
"He fought hard, but there was no hope for him"; 
and very commonly in Biblical and poetic English in 
phrases like " exceeding glad," " the sun shone cold 
upon the earth." 

The inflection of the Old English verb differs from 
that of the Modern English verb only in having a larger 
number of specific forms for the various persons, tenses, 
etc. There was considerable variety among the dialects 
of Old English iu their treatment of the inflections of 
the verb, the most conservative dialect being the West 
Saxon, which is made the basis of this description. In 
Old English, verbs are classified as weak, the Modern 
English regular verbs, and strong, the Modern English 
irregular verbs (see above Chapter III, § 4). Besides, 
they inflect for the three persons ; for two numbers ; for 
three moods, indicative, imperative, and optative or sub- 
junctive, the last mood being used much more exten- 
sively in Old English than it is in Modern English ; for 
the formation of the verbals, the participle and the infin- 
itive ; and for two tenses, the present and the past or 
preterite. The forms of the present tense are also 
used with the value of the future, and besides the 



ENGLISH INFLECTIONS 73 

simple inflectional tenses, as in Modern English, there 
are a number of phrasal verbs, formed with the auxili- 
aries habban, " have," sculan, " shall," willan, "will," beon, 
"be," etc., joined to the infinitive of the main verb. 
Old English, like Modern English, has no real inflec- 
tional passive, but only a compound or phrasal passive, 
formed with the help of the verb beon, " be," " was," 
etc., joined to the past participle of the verb. The in- 
finitive ends usually in -an, sing an, " to sing," but occa- 
sionally also in -ian, endian, " to end." The preposition 
" to " is not used in Old English merely as the sign of 
the infinitive, as in Modern English, but when used it is 
followed by the inflected form of the infinitive, in the 
dative case, the whole being virtually a prepositional 
phrase indicating purpose, e. g., to singanne, "for the 
purpose of singing," to endianne, "in order to end." 
The present participle ends in -ende, singende ; the past 
participle of the strong verb ends in -en, sungen, " sung," 
of the weak verb in -ed, -od, frequently carrying also 
the prefix ge-, e. g., ge-fylled, " filled," ge-endod, " ended." 
The personal endings are few in number. For the pres- 
ent tense indicative singular they are -e, -est, -eft : ic singe, 
ftu singest, he singeft. All persons of the plural end in 
-aS : we, ge, Me singafi. But most verbs, whose infini- 
tives end in -ian, have -aS in the third person singular, 
and -id§ in all persons of the plural. In the optative or 
subjunctive all singulars end in -e and all plurals in -en. 
In the past tense the first and third persons of strong 
verbs have no endings : ic sang, he sang ; but the second 
person has the ending -e, and likewise in the root of 
the word takes over the radical vowel of the plural, fiu 
sunge. The plural has the ending -on for all persons, we, 



74 MODERN ENGLISH 

ge, hie sungon. In the weak verb the second person 
singular of the past tense has the -est ending of the pres- 
ent, 3w fylledest; the first and third are ic fyllede, he 
fyllede, and the plural we, ge, hie fylledon. The subjunc- 
tive forms are the same for the past as for the present, -e 
for the singular, and -en for the plural. The only other 
forms which need be noted are those of the imperative, 
which appear in the singular either without ending or 
with the endings -e or -a, and in the plural with the end- 
ing -a$, or -mo\ 

4. The Inflections of the Middle English Period. 
The language of the Middle English period underwent a 
great number of changes, affecting not only inflections, 
but also vocabulary, sounds, and the whole structure of 
the language. The causes of this development, this 
thorogoing reconstruction of the language, are very 
complex. So far as inflections go, however, one of the 
main causes was pretty certainly a change in the way 
words were accented in the Middle English period. The 
only kind of word stress which could have preserved the 
full inflectional endings of the Old English period is a 
general or distributed stress, spread over the word as a 
whole. But in the Middle English period apparently 
the stress of words began to become more like that of 
Modern English, to be placed strongly and heavily on 
the first syllables of words, with a consequent obscuring 
and weakening of the later syllables of the words. A 
second main cause of inflectional change in the Middle 
English period was the condition of general social and 
political unrest which accompanied the period of the 
Danish Conquest, and, a little later, the Norman Con- 
quest. The result of these two conquests was the 



ENGLISH INFLECTION'S 75 

complete overthrow of the English social and political 
system. For a period of several generations there was a 
time of great confusion ; the standards, the traditional 
rules and habits of the English people of Britain, in 
speech and in other matters, were forgotten and broken 
down. The result was that the constraints of a rigid 
social custom, of conventional education and good breed- 
ing, being to a considerable extent removed, the language 
was allowed to develop in an untrammeled and popular 
way. The usages of the radical, the ignorant, and un- 
educated part of the people were not held in check and 
the result was that when English began to reassert itself, 
it was no longer the English of the Old English period, 
but an English that had been modified by passing 
through a period of popular and natural development. 
The situation was very much as tho what we now 
call " good English " should for some reason or other be 
given up, say as a result of a Japanese conquest of 
America. For a time Japanese would have the upper 
hand. Americans would all try to learn Japanese, to 
talk Japanese, to act like Japanese, because the Japa- 
nese would give tone to everything and would be the con- 
trolling power in the country. English would no longer 
be taught in the school or the home, and the only persons 
who would use English would be the populace, who 
would not of course come into close contact with the 
new ruling civilization of the country. They would 
speak their natural speech, the English of the people, 
and the old " good English " would become extinct and 
would be crowded out by the " incorrect English " of 
the uneducated and heedless part of the population. All 
who spoke English at all might then say " You was,' ' 



76 MODERN ENGLISH 

instead of " You were " ; " He ain't," instead of " He 
isn't"; perhaps " He done it," instead of "He did 
it " ; and a thousand similar uses which are now held 
in check by the standards of careful English would be- 
come general. For a time, then, we should all together 
be " uneducated " and " popular." But suppose now 
that after several generations this Japanese invasion and 
the prestige of things Japanese should pass over, and that 
English should begin to reassert itself. Soon the educa- 
tive and conservative instinct would set to work. The 
more thoughtful part of the people would again con- 
struct a system of the language, and again we should 
have rules of grammar, a correct speech, at the side of 
an incorrect one. But the new correct speech would be 
based simply upon the usage of the people of this later 
generation, and consequently it would contain much that 
the earlier generation regarded as incorrect. After the 
language had passed through the popular stage and had 
emerged again into a cultivated stage, " You was," " He 
ain't," and " He done it " might very well be the only 
possible correct forms. This, as has been said, is what 
happened in the Middle English period. The old stand- 
ards of conventional propriety and correctness were more 
or less forgotten, the language followed the free and un- 
regulated impulses of the people, and consequently when 
it rose again to the position of a stable and classical lit- 
erary language in the time of Chaucer and his predeces- 
sors, it was a very different language from what it had 
been in the time of Alfred and iElfric. It is not neces- 
sary, however, or even reasonable, to regard the language 
of the Middle English period as a corrupt and degener- 
ate form of Old English, for these terms suppose that 



ENGLISH INFLECTIONS 77 

the language of the later period is less admirable and 
effective than that of the earlier. It is better to speak 
of it as a development from, or an evolution out of, Old 
English. For it does not follow that the popular dialect 
of a language is any less capable of doing all that lan- 
guage is expected to do than the conventional " correct" 
speech. It often happens that it is more capable, and 
one of the main sources of strength in the English lan- 
guage is the frequency and the ease with which it renews 
its vigor by drawing from the living and ever-flowing 
well of popular speech. 

The inflections of the Middle English period are 
largely the inflections of the Old English period in a 
disappearing stage. Owing to that change in word ac- 
cent which has just been mentioned, the final syllables 
of words, especially inflectional syllables, tended to be- 
come weak and indistinct in pronunciation. This tend- 
ency is already apparent in the late Old English period, 
manifesting itself first in the ending -um of the dative 
plural of nouns and of adjectives, in the time of iElfric. 
This ending gradually became vague and uncertain, 
appearing in the various forms -un, -on, -en, -an, the last 
form becoming the predominating one by the end of 
the Old English period. The most important inflec- 
tional development, however, of the early Middle Eng- 
lish period consisted in the leveling of all unstressed 
end vowels under the vowel -e (pronounced like the 
second syllable of " sooner," with the r silent, i. e., 
" soon-uh"). The effect of this change upon the inflec- 
tional system of the noun, for example, will be seen by 
substituting this vowel -e for the various vowels given 
in the table of noun endings in § 3. The result would 



78 MODERN ENGLISH 

be the following scheme of noun inflections in Middle 
English : 

SlNGULAE. PLUBAI.. 

Nominative -, -e. Nominative -, -e, -es, -en. 

Genitive -e, -es, -en. Genitive -e, -ene. 

Dative -, -e, -en. Dative -en. 

Accusative -, -e, -en. Accusative -, -e, -es, -en. 

Several important consequences followed this leveling 
of the distinctive Old English vowel endings under the 
vowel -e. In the first place, the grouping of the nouns 
into classes, or types, of declension had largely to be 
given up, for the principle of this classification was the 
difference in vowel ending. The two classes which re- 
mained were the class of the strong and weak nouns, the 
strong nouns being those that formed their genitive sin- 
gular and nominative and accusative plurals in -es, the 
weak nouns those that used the ending -en for these and 
other forms. Moreover, with the breaking down of the 
different classes of declension passed away also gram- 
matical gender. All inflections being leveled under 
the general inflections -e, -es, -en, there was no longer 
any reason, or indeed any means, for keeping up the dis- 
tinctions of grammatical gender, and words were used as 
they are in Modern English, without gender, except in 
so far as they state, by their logical meaning, the sex of 
the objects which they designate. The inflection of a 
typical strong noun in Middle English is that of ston 
(the vowel a having changed to o in the Middle English 
period), of a typical weak noun, that of sterre, " star," 
in the following paradigms ; letters which are enclosed 
within parentheses are such as are sometimes dropped 



ENGLISH INFLECTIONS 79 

in the early Middle English period and are altogether 
dropped in the later Middle English period. 

Singular. Singular. 

Nominative ston Nominative sterre 

Genitive stones Genitive sterre (n) 

Dative ston(e) Dative sterre (n) 

Accusative ston Accusative sterre (n) 

Plubal. Plural. 

Nominative stones Nominative sterren 

Genitive ston(en)e, stones Genitive sterr(en)e 

Dative stonen, stones Dative sterren 

Accusative stones Accusative sterren 

The tendency of all nouns was to fall into these two 
groups, the ston-stones group, and the sterre-sterren group. 
The ston-stones group, as the more numerous group, 
tended to impose itself upon the sterre-sterren group, so 
that besides these forms and contemporary with them 
are often found the forms sterre, sterres. 

The loss of grammatical gender in the noun naturally 
led to the loss of agreement in inflection between the 
noun and its adjective, so far as gender is concerned. 
The same leveling of inflectional endings took place in 
the adjective as in the noun ; the only one which per- 
sisted after the loss of those indicative of gender was 
the vowel -e, which served to mark the plural number 
and the weak inflection of the adjective. The inflection 
of the Middle English adjective god, "good," would, 
therefore, be as follows: 

Strong. Weak. 

Singular, all cases and genders, Singular, all cases and genders, 

god. gode. 

Plural, all cases and genders, Plural, all cases and genders, 

gode. gode. 



80 MODERN ENGLISH 

An example of a strong singular would be the phrase 
A yong Squyer (from Chaucer's Prolog to The Canter- 
bury Tales, 1. 79) ; a strong plural would be and smote 
fowles (ibid., 1. 9 ; it should be remembered that every 
vowel is pronounced in Middle English) ; a weak singu- 
lar is the phrase The yonge sonne, and a weak plural, the 
phrase The tendre croppes (both ibid., 1. 7). 

In the case of the definite article, the forms with ini- 
tial s, that is se and seo, gave up this s for J> (th), by anal- 
ogy to the majority of the forms of the article, which begin 
with ]>. This gave for the nominative singular forms pe, 
Ipeo, \azt. But by a regular phonetic development, the 
vowel of Ipeo became the same as that of pe, and with the 
loss of grammatical gender in the noun, the separate 
neuter form ]>mt was given up as an article, its place being 
taken by the form ]>e of the masculine and feminine ; no 
longer needed as an article, the form Ipaet itself per- 
sisted with changed value as a demonstrative pronoun. 
Having gone as far as this, analogy then operated still 
further, and there being little need felt for inflecting 
the article in the other cases and for gender, since it was 
readily assumed that the article was of the same case and 
gender as the noun with which it went, the single fixed 
form Ipe (the) established itself for all genders, numbers, 
and cases of the article. The main principle, therefore, 
which operated in the simplification of the definite arti- 
cle is that of substitution, one single type form crowding 
out all the dozen or more inflections of the Old English 
article. 

Inflection of the verb as strong and weak, or irregular 
and regular, persisted in the Middle English period, but 
from early Middle English times there was a tendency 



\x)m SegpnnytH riJcparSdliiicr §\6 tn& 

1 fSnifape \fc6iflHmi SvedTcSc a cmnjf^myc 
c5^r S-Of *m»*k foiF t&it (farnvSv fcipc 
^6 rjvt- &i|tfr3 Rvttj* x mwvnye 
' ficiv h« *feitf» fctrppe futpe a gctcrttp* 

(k? Sam* a yfinv & 9ct€ fotftc fctp/tnj#ft- 
3iid ct<.*dtyu& d(jo ofwr Gciv nikr 

5 iitiw tfrtt 9wpff:t^f^air[tf*te \*p|c 

ficix otine (kch Jo $wctc i jo astraniaGfc 
^i)»it ct& $vc|*tt> foi ti> fictv fi« f\frctv 
Oiirc 0^ff<^< fofcte 6o$j> rfvcy to tcrc 
Ifan tfiou*tc t$4r)«fet0 tcmt (5^ norj oouaK 

.AtiS tf)tmc twt 4 tion ' coinim '^11111 bc(fen^ 
flctppr a fiiififc a. wu& frutcffccri* 

The Beginning of Chaucer's "Pardoner's Tale." 

From Cambridge University Library MS. G. G. 4. 27, folio 306. 
(For description, see Appendix.) 



82 MODERN ENGLISH 

on the part of strong verbs to become weak, for example, 
Old English wepan, weop, beside Middle English wepen, 
wepte, " weep," " wept." This tendency, which was de- 
veloped still further in the Modern English period, and 
which is still operative, was due to the fact that the 
weak verbs were the more numerous, as well as being 
the simpler and more readily apprehended manner of 
tense formation. The weak verbs thus tended to become 
the type form, crowding out by analogy to them many 
old strong verbs and attracting to their class all new 
verbs that entered the language. Examining the de- 
scription of verb inflections for the Old English period 
given above, it will be seen that the general rule of 
the leveling of inflectional vowels under the vowel -e 
affected a considerable number of verb forms. The end- 
ings -aS, -ia§ of the present plural became -eft, like the 
third singular. The endings -e, -a, and -#(5, -iaft of the 
imperative became respectively -e and -eS. The infinitive 
endings -an, -ian, -anne became -en, -enne. In the pret- 
erite plural the -on, -don endings became -en, -den. 
Other changes were due to different causes. The end- 
ing of the present participle -ende tended to fall to- 
gether with certain nouns naming actions which ended 
regularly in -wig, -ing, e. g., langung, " desire, longing," 
and which in Old English were distinctly felt as nouns 
and not as parts of the verb. Their similarity in form, 
however, and also in meaning, attracted the present 
participle to these nouns, with the result that the -ende 
participial inflection was given up, and the noun in -ung, 
-ing, and the present participle became indistinguishable 
in form, both with the ending -ing. Another simplifica- 
tion that tended to take place affected the preterite 



ENGLISH INFLECTIONS 83 

tenses. In the Old English strong verb, the preterite 
plural stem was frequently different from the preterite 
singular, and the past participle often differed from both. 
In Middle English the three preterite stems tended to be- 
come alike, to simplify under one form, just as the forms 
of the article all tended to simplify under the type form 
the. Thus the Old English verb bindan, band, bundon, 
bunden, became in Middle English binde, bound, bound. 
This leveling never became complete, as in the case of 
the article, and we still have in Modern English verbs 
like sing, sang, sung ; drive, drove, driven ; the simplifica- 
tion, however, affected a considerable number of verbs. 

5. The Inflections of the Modern English Period. 
Altho the Modern English period is called the period 
of lost inflections, it should be understood that this term 
is used with relative, and not absolute, meaning. All 
inflections have not been lost in the Modern English 
period, altho compared with those of the Middle Eng- 
lish or the Old English period they have dwindled to a 
very small number. Nevertheless the language still re- 
mains an inflectional language, and for the expression of 
certain ideas no other means than inflection has been 
devised. The developments in the Modern English 
period arise from the further carrying out of the two 
tendencies of the Middle English period, first the tend- 
ency towards obscuring the vowels of inflectional 
syllables, and second, the tendency towards simplifica- 
tion by the substitution of one type form in the place of 
a variety of forms. In the passage from the Middle 
English to the Modern English period, the language did 
not again become merely a popular dialect which later 
was elevated to the dignity of a standard literary 



84 MODERN ENGLISH 

language, as had occurred in the transition from the Old 
English to the Middle English period. On the contrary, 
from the end of the Middle English time to the present 
day the language has been watched with increasing care 
and vigilance. It has been systematized, regulated, 
purified; in short, it has tended to become more and 
more an established and settled literary and conventional 
language. The changes, consequently, which have 
taken place in the Modern English period have been 
comparatively slow and comparatively few in number. 
The difference between the English of the year 1900 and 
the year 1500 is much less than that between the Eng- 
lish of the year 1250 and the year 1000. The Modern 
English has been a regulating, refining, systematizing 
period, rather than a revolutionizing, reconstructing 
period. 

The final result, in the early Modern English period, 
of the weakening of inflectional vowels was, as has been 
stated, their complete loss. Thus starting with the Old 
English dissyllabic noun nam-a, "name," we get in 
Middle English the form nam-e, still a dissyllable ; but 
in Modern English we have name, a monosyllable, the 
final -e having no other value than to indicate the 
length of the radical vowel. Likewise the Old English 
plural stem-as, the Middle English ston-es, becomes 
Modern English ston(e)s ; and the Old English genitive 
stan-es, Middle English ston-es, is Modern English 
8ton(e)8, with an apostrophe as a mechanical device to 
distinguish the possessive from the plural. With the 
loss of the final -e disappeared also the last remnant of 
concord between the adjective and its noun. For where 
Middle English indicated agreement in plural number 



ENGLISH INFLECTIONS 85 

and indicated the weak inflection of the adjective by the 
inflectional -e, Modern English, through the loss of this 
inflection, lost also the grammatical distinctions, and uses 
now only one adjective form in all positions. The def- 
inite article, having leveled all its forms under the type 
form the, had already in the Middle English period 
developed as far as possible. The verb underwent the 
same changes in the loss of "final syllables that other 
words experienced : thus the Old English infinitive 
tuep-an became Middle English wep-en, and this by the 
loss of the final syllable and the regular change in the 
radical vowel became Modern English weep. 

As important as these changes due to inflectional loss, 
are those which were brought about by substitution. 
Thus in the nouns the two type declensions which were 
preserved in Middle English, the strong and the weak, 
the strong forming its plural by means of the ending 
-es, the weak by means of the ending -en, tended to sim- 
plify under the type of the strong nouns, which were 
the more numerous. The result was that where Chaucer 
wrote treen, "trees,'' been, "bees," shoon, "shoes," and 
so with a great many other nouns, we now use the com- 
mon -s ending for all plurals. The only exceptions to 
this rule (aside from a few words like tooth, teeth, which 
form their plurals by internal inflection) and the only 
survivals of the old weak inflection in Modern English 
are the words ox-en, plural of ox, children, and brethren, 
plurals of child and brother. 

Substitution affected the old genitive, our modern 
possessive, in a remarkable way. The genitive ending 
-es in Old English was the mark of the genitive singu- 
lar, masculine and neuter, of the noun. It then became 



86 MODERN ENGLISH 

a type form for all genitives, feminine as well as mascu- 
line and neuter, in the singular. The Old English geni- 
tive plural inflection for all genders was -a, -ena, which 
in Middle English became -e, -ene. In Modern English, 
inflectional loss would have deprived the genitive of any 
ending in the plural. Instead, however, the genitive 
singular ending became typical not only for all genders 
of the singular, but for the plural as well. The ending 
-es was felt, therefore, as a generalized inflection stand- 
ing for the genitive or possessive relation. We get, con- 
sequently, as the general type form of the singular noun 
in Modern English, stone, except stone's, the genitive or 
possessive, which in writing and printing has an apos- 
trophe before the -s to distinguish the word from the 
plural. A similar mechanical device is used to mark 
the genitive or possessive plural from the possessive sin- 
gular and the other forms of the plural ; here, however, 
the apostrophe is placed after the -s, as in stones', tho 
the phonetic value of the word is the same as that of the 
possessive singular. We have, therefore, as type of the 
plural inflection, the common form stones, with the pos- 
sessive plural stones' . This use of the apostrophe as a 
mechanical device to indicate the possessive is of com- 
paratively late origin. It became established only at 
the end of the seventeenth and in the early eighteenth 
centuries as a result of the growing influence of printing 
and of printers' rules. It is of course a device for the 
eye and not for the ear. Before the use of the apostro- 
phe, however, another method of indicating the posses- 
sive had become pretty general in writing, the use of the 
pronoun his instead of the genitive ending -s, as in G-od 
his ivrath, for God's wrath. This pronoun his was never 



ENGLISH INFLECTIONS 87 

pronounced in spoken speech, but, like the apostrophe 
it served merely as a visual symbol to indicate the pos- 
sessive relation. In proof of this the remark of the 
Elizabethan versifier, Gabriel Harvey, the friend of 
Spenser, may be cited. Harvey is complaining that the 
English spelling of his day was misleading to the poet, 
because often words were spelled as dissyllables but pro- 
nounced as monosyllables, and continues thus : " But see 
what absurdities thys yl fauored Orthographye, or rather 
Pseudography, hathe engendred, and howe one errour 
still breedeth and begetteth an other. Haue wee not 
Mooneth for Moonthe, sithence for since, whitest for whilste, 
phantasie for phansie, euen for evn, Diuel for Divl, God 
hys wrath for Goddes wrath, and a thousande of the same 
stampe." l 

Modern English has developed special forms of the 
possessive when the possessive stands in absolute position, 
that is, when it is not immediately followed by the noun 
which it modifies. Thus we say, " This is my hat," or, in 
the archaic form, " This is thy hat " ; but " This hat is 
mine, thine. " In their origins the thine, mine forms of the 
possessive are direct survivals of the Old English geni- 
tives, $m, mm. Formerly, that is, in the Middle English 
period, these full forms were retained before words begin- 
ning with a vowel sound, as they are still in Modern Eng- 
lish poetry, e. g., "Mine eyes have seen the glory of the 

1 Gabriel Harvey, Of Reformed Versifying, written in 1579-1580, and re- 
printed in Smith, Elizabethan Critical Essays, I, 120. Notice in this pas- 
sage how freely and inconsistently Harvey uses the final -e, e. g., hathe, 
howe, moonthe, whilste, thousande, stampe. Of course none of these final 
-e's were pronounced. At the close of the Middle English period when 
the final -e's had lost all phonetic value, they were often retained in spell- 
ing, but also often dropped, and even were indiscriminately added to the 
spelling of words to which they had never really belonged. 



88 MODERN ENGLISH 

coming of the Lord " ; but the abbreviated forms my, thy, 
tended to become general, especially before words begin- 
ning with a consonant. When special forms were required 
for the possessive in absolute position, the full forms 
mine, thine, were naturally chosen, and my, thy, his, our, 
and your became the only forms for the possessive in 
adjective position. But the forms his, her, our, your, and 
their, in absolute position, also underwent a change. In 
Old English there were not two forms of these pro- 
nouns, the same form being used in both the adjective 
and absolute positions. In Middle English the un- 
changed forms continued to be used for some time, as 
in the Wycliffe- Purvey Bible, Luke vi, 20 : the kyngdom 
of God is youre. But gradually a distinctive genitive 
ending for these absolute possessives was felt to be 
necessary, and two forms came into use. The first was 
made by adding the regular -s genitive ending, as the type 
indication of the possessive relation, giving ours, yours, 
and of course his, which needed no addition. But by 
analogy to the mine, thine forms, influenced perhaps also 
by the possessive adjective own, possessives with an -n 
ending were formed, giving mine, thine, ourn, yourn, 
theirn, etc. Examples of this second kind of formation 
are found in the Wy cliff e-Purvey Bible, as in Mark xii, 
7 : the eritage schal he ourun ; Matthew v, 3 : the kyng- 
dom of hevenes is heme. This form of the absolute 
possessive persists in Modern English only in popular 
speech, the standard or conventional use having become 
yours, hers, theirs, etc. 1 

1 Some of the dialects of England have carried this method of possessive 
formation over into the nominative, e. g., shisn, composed of the nomina- 
tive she, to which are added first the possessive -s, and then the absolute 
possessive -n endings. See Wright, English Dialect Grammar, p. 275. 



ENGLISH INFLECTIONS 89 

Substitution affected also the forms of the personal 
pronouns in an interesting way. In the first person, 
the correspondence between Modern English and the 
earlier periods is close, Modern English I, mine, me, and 
we, our, us, being the direct representation of Old Eng- 
lish ic, mm, me, and ive, ure, us. In the second person, 
however, the difference is great. This change started 
with the nominative plural, Old English ge, which gave 
our Biblical English ye, as in What went ye out for to 
see ? For this ye, however, was early substituted the 
form you, which was the form for the dative and accu- 
sative, derived from Old English low. The possessive 
form was also your from eower, and the preponderance 
of the spellings you, you-r naturally led to its substitu- 
tion in the nominative, giving you. In the singular the 
old forms Sw, oln, 3e gave regularly our Biblical English 
thou, thine, thee. In the late Middle English period, 
however, the thou, thine, thee forms tended to be given 
up for the you, your, you forms of the plural. This sub- 
stitution was brought about through the influence of 
the French language, in which the plural form of the 
pronoun was the polite form, even in addressing a 
single individual. The singular pronoun was used only 
in familiar address, in the conversation of intimate 
friends or the members of a family. Both forms of 
the singular have persisted to modern times, but the 
forms thou, thine, thee are now used in literary speech, 
and then only in poetry and elevated discourse ; the 

The New English Dictionary cites the following example from the 
Hampshire dialect : " Let thee and I go our own waay, and we '11 let she 
go shisn." Another analogical formation, sometimes heard in the lan- 
guage of childreu, is the possessive mies for my ; viies is to my, as yours, 
theirs are to your, their. 



90 MODERN ENGLISH 

real singular is now you, your, you. In some dialects, 
especially in England, the thou, thine, thee forms also 
persist in popular spoken use. In the earlier Modern 
English period, in the time of Shakspere, and as late 
as the early eighteenth century, the two forms thou 
and you existed in good English side by side, and 
they could be and were used in current colloquial 
speech with good effect. The form thou was used in 
the conversation of friends, or of a husband and wife, 
the transition to you indicating a slightly more formal 
tone in conversation. Thus, for example, in the come- 
dies of Etherege and Vanbrugh, two men friends or two 
women friends (but not a man and a woman, unless 
they are husband and wife), usually address each other 
as thou, but to others they are you. In Etherege's She 
Would if She Could, Sir Frederick, a boisterous swash- 
buckler, noisy and familiar, uses thou to Mrs. Rich, the 
effect being one of a sort of friendly, good-natured im- 
pertinence, Mrs. Rich being only his friend and there- 
fore properly to be addressed by you. In speaking to 
servants and those of inferior social rank, and in giving 
orders, thou was also the form used. It was likewise 
used in contemptuous language, as in Sir Toby's advice 
to Sir Andrew Aguecheek, " If thou thou 'st him some 
thrice, it shall not be amiss" (Twelfth Night, III, 2). 
All this is what we should expect, for the language of 
familiar intercourse, of friendship, and of contempt is 
all on somewhat the same plane — that is, it is all the 
language of strongly colloquial and familiar color. It is 
interesting to observe that the forms thou, thine, and thee 
have been at all periods the ones used in prayer and 
generally in elevated discourse, and this is true even of 



ENGLISH INFLECTIONS 91 

those periods in which thou is used as a mark of famili- 
arity or of contempt. The polite forms you, your, you 
have never been used in addressing the Deity, probably, 
first of all because there was originally a feeling of in- 
congruity in using what was fashionable or courtly lan- 
guage for this purpose ; and now, of course, you is no 
longer courtly or fashionable, but too familiar to be used 
for lofty purposes. Moreover the language of poetry 
and prayer is always strongly traditional and conserva- 
tive; it would consequently tend to preserve the old 
historical usage of the English tongue, and once the use 
of thou was fixed in sacred language, as in the prayer 
book and the English translation of the Bible, it would 
naturally be very influential in maintaining that usage 
through later periods. This feeling for thou as the only 
proper form to be used in addressing the Deity is well 
brought out in a passage of a sixteenth century work, A 
Dialogue against the Feuer Pestilence, printed in 1564. l 
A beggar, Mendicus, appears at a door soliciting alms, 
and recites part of the Lord's Prayer as follows : " Our 
father whiche art in heauen, hallowed be your name, 
your kyngdom come, your will be dooen in yearth as it 
is in heauen," etc., upon which he is ridiculed by Civis 
and Uxor, the gentlemen from whom he is soliciting 
alms, one of whom remarks, " Me thinke I doe heare a 
good manerly Begger at the doore, and well brought up. 
How reuerently he saieth his Pater Noster ! he thous not 
God, but you[s] him." 

The discrepancy between the plural form you as a 
word of address to a single person disturbed greatly the 
peace of mind of the founders of the Society of Friends 

l . Early English Text Society. Extra Series, Vol. LII, p. 5. 



92 MODERN ENGLISH 

or Quakers. They observed that the Bible, meaning of 
course the English translation, always used thou to one 
and you to many. They thought it not fitting, therefore, 
that men should use a more dignified form of expression 
in addressing each other than they used in addressing 
the Lord. Moreover you as a word of address to a single 
person is not consistent with the well-known rule of 
grammar, according to which you is plural, and therefore 
on that score also its use as singular was wrong. This 
is just the kind of linguistic crotchet which we might 
expect to stick in the mind of a half-educated person 
like George Fox, the founder of the Society of Friends ; 
and it is not surprising to see him come forth in 
defense of Thou to One and You to Many, to use his 
own battle-cry. He published a work called " A Battle- 
Door 1 for Teachers and Professors to learn Singular and 
Plural; You to Many, and Thou to One: Singular One, 
Thou; Plural Many, You," which was printed in London, 
for " Robert Wilson and to be sold at his Shop at the 
Signe of the Black-spre ad-Eagle and Wind-mil in Mar- 
tins le Grand, 1660." The teachers and professors of 
his day Fox takes to task in the following fashion: 
" Do not they speak false English, false Latine, false 
Greek, false Hebrew, false Caldee, false Syriack, and 
Arabick, false Dutch, false French ; and false to the 
other Tongues, that followes here in this Book, that 
doth not speak thou to one, what ever he be, Father, 

1 A battle-door, as the word is used here, means a primer. Literally 
the word means a wooden bat, shaped somewhat like a tennis racket. But 
it is used in this metaphorical sense because the early primer, or horn-book, 
consisted of a cardboard with the abc, etc., on it, surrounded by a wooden 
rim with a handle, and covered with a transparent piece of horn, the whole 
being shaped somewhat like a fiat bat or racket. 



ENGLISH INFLECTIONS 93 

Mother, King, or Judge ; is he not a Novice and Un- 
mannerly, and an Ideot and a Fool, that speaks You to 
one, which is not to be spoken to a singular, but to many? 
O Vulgar Professors and Teachers, that speaks Plural 
when they should Singular, lapis, a stone, lapides, stones, 
that is, more than one. Come you Priests and Profes- 
sors, have you not learnt your Accidence ? " 1 

This avoidance of you as a pronoun of address in the 
singular has persisted to this day among the Friends. 
But the old, and historically the correct, form thou as 
nominative has been given up for the type form thee, 
used for both nominative and objective, as in " Thee will 
have to get thee another coat." In thus using the objec- 
tive thee as the type form, the Friends have done exactly 
what the standard language has done, since the nomina- 
tive here is historically ye and the objective is you, 
from Old English ge and eow, the two forms being sim- 
plified under one, the objective form you. 

Substitution has also contributed largely to the sim- 
plification of the Modern English verb system. The 
limiting of the principal parts by reducing the preterite 
tenses to one type form has already been mentioned. 
The personal inflections have also been simplified, es- 
pecially in the present tense. Here, through the com- 
bined influence of inflectional leveling and loss, and of 
substitution, working through several dialects of the 
Middle English period, all forms have been reduced to 
a single type, e. g. (I, you, we, you, they) sing, with 
the exception of the third singular, (he) sings, which 
has an inflectional -s. The elevated language has been 
more conservative, preserving the special forms for the 

1 Fox, A Battle-Door for Teachers, pp. 2-3. 



94 MODERN ENGLISH 

singular (I) sing, (thou) singest, (he) singeth, but the 
plural is the same in both elevated and normal style. 

6. Conclusions. The general effect of inflectional 
loss and substitution has been to change to a consider- 
able extent the structure of the English language. 
From a language in which each word was closely and 
formally united to some other word by agreement in 
grammatical form, that is from a synthetic language, 
English has developed into a language in which the 
words, so far as formal concord or agreement goes, are 
almost altogether free and independent. The language 
has developed type forms which can stand in any posi- 
tion, their relationships being indicated largely by the 
order of the words as they are put together, not by 
inflectional elements. This kind of language is called 
analytic, in contrast to synthetic, because in its struc- 
ture it is made up of independent units which may be 
easily detached from each other, whereas in the syn- 
thetic structure, the language binds the word group into 
a whole in which all the words are mutually dependent 
for their form on their place in the group. This will 
be made clear by an illustration. The adjective old in 
our modern analytic language may modify any noun 
of any gender, number, or case; it is a perfectly free, 
universal word-unit. In a synthetic stage of the lan- 
guage, however, as in Old English, the adjective old 
had to take on various forms according to the gender, 
number, and case of the noun, and according as it was 
inflected strong or weak. Thus the Modern English 
phrases the old man and the old men, changes only the 
word man, the other words being type forms that modify 
the plural as well as the singular. In Old English, 



ENGLISH INFLECTIONS 95 

however, we should have to change all three words, 
se ealda man for the singular, and pa ealde men for the 
plural. 

It will be seen from this example that the modern 
analytic language has in many respects gained in econ- 
omy over the older synthetic language. By the use 
of type forms, the modern language saves much useless 
repetition. Thus in the two Modern English phrases 
cited in the preceding paragraph, the ideas of singular 
and plural are each expressed once by man and men, 
and need not, so far as power of conveying the thought 
is concerned, be expressed by the modifying words. 
But in Old English not only does man express the 
singular idea, but it is expressed also by the inflection 
in se and ealda; and in the case of the plural, the idea 
of plurality is expressed three times as well, once by 
men, once by ealdan and once by pa. Nothing is gained 
by this threefold repetition of the idea of plurality, and 
Modern English is much the simpler and more reason- 
able in allowing it to be assumed that when one uses 
the noun men, adjectives which limit this noun are 
plural also. In the same way the synthetic language 
has to repeat the idea of gender or of case with each 
new modifying word, whereas in Modern English this 
repetition is likewise avoided by the use of type forms 
for all genders and cases. 

One further illustration of the change from synthetic 
to analytic structure, and the advantage of the latter 
over the former, may be cited, the example being taken 
from Modern English and Latin, the latter a more highly 
inflectional, and therefore more synthetic, language than 
any period of English. The English relative pronoun who 



96 MODERN ENGLISH 

is a type form, expressing merely the interrogative idea 
without limitation of gender or number. To translate 
the English sentence, Who did it ? into Latin, however, 
we should have to give four sentences, Quis hoc fecit? 
the pronoun being the singular masculine interrogative ; 
Quae hoc fecit ? the pronoun being the singular feminine ; 
Qui hoc fecerunt? the plural masculine; and Quae hoc 
fecerunt? the plural feminine. Since the question 
Who did it ? usually contains no implication of gender 
and number, and is merely a question for information, it 
is manifestly better to have a general type form in which 
to cast the question, than to be compelled to make it 
specific as to gender and number as the Latin must do. 
The English analytic form of expression answers more 
exactly to the logic of the situation, and is consequently 
to be regarded as better than the synthetic form of 
expression. 1 

The question naturally arises whether Modern English 
has carried the process of simplification and substitution 
as far as it can, and if not, if it is likely to carry it 
further. As to the first half of this question, it is ob- 
vious that there is room for further simplification in the 
English language, and that the language would be the 
gainer by further simplifications. These simplifying sub- 
stitutions are indeed carried out in strata of the language 
which do not feel the restraining force of the conven- 
tional and standard speech. Thus we have all observed 
that children strive to substitute the type plural in -s 
for those few irregular plurals that survive in English, 

1 See Jespersen, Progress in Language, pp. 30-31 ; and see Jespersen's 
book, passim, for a detailed consideration of the advantages of an analytic 
language over a synthetic one. 



ENGLISH INFLECTIONS 97 

giving thus foots, tooths, for feet, teeth, etc. It is a 
general tendency with children also to substitute the 
regular or weak forms for all the irregular or strong 
forms of the verb, giving grow, groived, groived, for grow, 
grew, grown; drive, drived, drived, for drive, drove, 
driven, etc. These usages of child language may all be 
paralleled by usages of uneducated adults, since children 
and the uneducated are on the same plane so far as the 
restraining power of rule or convention in language is 
concerned. Thus the very common tendency of the un- 
educated to use only one form for the past tense and 
past participle of the verb, usually the past participle 
being made to do duty for both, as in He done it, and I 
seen him, is exactly this process of type substitution. 
Logically there is no reason why we should have more 
than two principal parts in the verb, one for present 
time and one for past time, / do, and I did, or done, I 
see, and I saw, or seen, with which the auxiliaries can 
then build up the various compound tenses and forms. 
The regular verbs, like walk, walked, walked, and many 
of the irregular, have and need only two principal parts. 
The substitution of seen for saw and done for did is 
exactly similar in kind to other substitutions which took 
place in earlier periods, and which have been accepted 
into the standard language. Thus the verb cling, clung, 
clung, historically should have three parts, cling, clang, 
clung, like sing, sang, sung ; ring, rang, rung, etc. So 
also the verb shine, shone, shone is derived from the Old 
English verb sclnan, scan, scinon, scinen, which should 
have given regularly shine, shone, shinnen, like ride, 
rode, ridden; write, wrote, written, and numerous other 
verbs. Instead, however, it has substituted a type form 

7 



98 MODERN ENGLISH 

for the preterite tenses, using for this purpose the regu- 
lar form of the preterite singular. 

But the question whether or not Modern English will 
carry out further these simplifications by type substitu- 
tion is one which does not depend upon precedent, or, to 
any considerable extent, upon the reasonableness and 
advantage of such changes. The English language of 
to-day has become so fixed by long use, by the systematic 
statements of it which have been made by the gram- 
marians and rhetoricians, by the conventionalizing ten- 
dencies which always accompany the higher forms of 
civilization, that changes in such obvious features of 
language as inflection find it extremely hard to make 
their way into good use. The popular dialects will con- 
tinue to grow and develop in a freer and less trammeled 
way, but the cultivated speech, tho no less subject to 
continuous change, is more likely to change in subtler 
ways than by the direct substitution of one form for 
another. 



V 

ENGLISH SOUNDS 

1. The Study of English Sounds. Altho one of 
the most recent branches of linguistic study, the study 
of sounds, or phonetics, to give the subject its tech- 
nical name, has been one of the most productive of 
valuable results. The study of the sounds of past pe- 
riods has made the science of etymology possible, and it 
has been one of the chief means of determining the rela- 
tionships of languages. Grimm's Law, for example, is a 
phonetic law. The study of contemporary sounds also 
is helpful in various ways. It is of great practical value 
to all who have anything to do with foreign languages, 
or with the earlier stages of their own language. There 
is no quicker or more certain way of apprehending an 
unfamiliar sound than by observing how, that is, by just 
what positions and movements of the vocal organs it is 
made, and then by repeating these positions and move- 
ments for one's self. Another reason for the study of 
the sounds of contemporary speech is based on the gen- 
eral principle that we all owe it to ourselves to know 
what we do, and to choose to do those things that will 
conduce most to our happiness and welfare. It might 
seem that it could be taken for granted that every one 
naturally knew just how his speech sounded, without 
giving any special attention to the matter. Experiment 
and observation have shown, however, that this is far 



100 MODERN ENGLISH 

from being true. One who has not given considerable 
attention to the study of speech-sounds does not usually 
hear his own speech accurately and justly. He needs 
the gift to hear himself as others hear him. Time and 
again it has been shown that a person thinks he says 
one thing when actually the sound which he utters is 
different. Often if one's speech could be recorded on 
the disc of a phonograph, when reproduced it would not 
be recognized and would be disclaimed by the person 
who uttered it. 

The practical bearing of all this is obvious. Pronun- 
ciation and grammar are without doubt the most gener- 
ally applied, and, on the whole, the simplest and most 
effective tests of cultivation and education. As Holmes 
in the Autocrat says, " a movement or a phrase often tells 
you all you want to know about a person." No doubt 
there is danger of drawing too sweeping inferences from 
the speech of others, a danger to which all, the critic 
and the criticised, are equally liable. Nevertheless, in 
the end speech remains the surest and most convenient 
index of the social habits and the intellectual life of the 
person who uses it. It behooves all, therefore, to take 
cognizance of the matter of their speech, especially of 
the subtle and elusive matter of pronunciation. Every 
person owes it to himself to know what the facts of his 
pronunciation are and how these facts impress other per- 
sons with whom he is thrown in contact. When he has 
a just appreciation of all these facts, he can then order 
his conduct as seems wisest and best to him. Before we 
can proceed, however, to the intelligent discussion of 
historical sound changes or of specific questions of con- 
temporary pronunciation, it will be necessary, first, to 



ENGLISH SOUXDS 101 

describe briefly the organs of speech and the method 
of sound-production in speaking, and, second, to settle 
upon some terminology, or representation, of sounds by 
which the various sounds may be certainly designated and 
distinguished. 

2. The Production of English Sounds. Sound, 
so far as we are concerned with it in the study of lan- 
guage, may be denned as the sensation of hearing pro- 
duced by the modifications of a column of air in its 
passage from the lungs through the organs of speech. 
The specific character of the sound varies as the column 
of air is variously modified by the different organs 
through which it passes. The production of speech- 
sound, therefore, is essentially not different from the 
production of musical sound in a wind instrument, as a 
horn or a clarinet. 

Phonetics, however, which is the study of the sounds 
of language, is not concerned with all the sounds which 
the human organs of speech are capable of producing, 
such as shrieks, cries, groans, and so forth, but only with 
articulate sounds, that is, those sounds which are joined 
together, or articulated, for the formation of syllables, 
then of words, phrases, and sentences. Moreover, a 
language, English for example, does not use all the pos- 
sible articulate sounds which the voice can produce, but 
makes a selection from a comparatively much larger 
number, which become then the sound material of the 
language. Different languages make a choice of different 
sounds ; and we have sounds in English which are not 
used in French and German, and French and German, 
on the other hand, have sounds which we do not use in 
English. Yet we know from the fact that Englishmen 



102 MODERN ENGLISH 

learn French and German, and Frenchmen and Germans 
learn English, that all, with practice, are equally capable 
of producing all the sounds of the various languages. 
Each special language, therefore, makes what seems to 
be an arbitrary choice of a certain number of possible 
sounds ; and we may consequently define English pho- 
netics as the study of the sounds used in the construction 
of English speech. 

The organs mainly concerned in the production of 
speech sound are the lungs ; the larynx, in which are 
the glottis and the vocal chords; the cavity of the 
mouth, in which the tongue, the palate, the lips and the 
teeth are important modifiers of sound; and the cavity 
of the nose. The lungs are concerned with the produc- 
tion of sound only in that they send forth the column of 
air which later is modified by the more special organs of 
voice so as to produce sound. When one produces 
sound by playing a wind instrument the column of air 
passes unmodified by the speech organs into the more 
distant modifying agent, the horn, or flute, or whatever 
the instrument may be. Under normal conditions it is 
only the expiratory column of air that is used in the 
production of speech sound, the inspired air being pro- 
ductive of sound only in the case of sighing and a few 
interjections. 

The larynx, or voice box, is the first place at which 
the air from the lungs on its passage outward may meet 
with any obstruction. The larynx is really a part of the 
windpipe, or trachea, and leads from the rear end of 
the opening of the nose and mouth to the lungs. From 
the back of the mouth a second tube, the gullet, or esoph- 
agus, leads into the stomach. The common space at the 



ENGLISH SOUNDS 103 

back of the mouth from which these two canals branch 
is called the pharynx. The entrance to the trachea, or 
windpipe, is provided with a valve or lid, called the 
epiglottis, which can be lowered in the act of swallow- 
ing so as to prevent food from passing down the 
trachea. When for any reason the epiglottis fails to 
work, as it does some times, and portions of food or 
water make their way into the trachea, we perform the 
operation popularly known as " swallowing by the Sun- 
day throat." 

The larynx itself is a circular, or nearly circular, and 
tubular combination of cartilages and muscles. The 
largest of these cartilages, the thyroid or shield-like 
cartilage, forms the main structure of the larynx ; it can 
be felt from the outside of the throat, and is commonly 
known as the Adam's apple. Another important carti- 
lage is the cricoid, or ring cartilage, which forms the 
base of the voice box or larynx, and to which the vocal 
chords are attached. The muscles of the larynx pass 
from one cartilage to the other and have as their chief 
function the contraction and loosening of the vocal chords. 
These chords are two in number, and they are attached to 
the base of the larynx, passing approximately over the 
middle of the opening of the larynx. They are not to 
be thought of as chords like violin strings, for one side 
of each is completely attached to the sides of the voice 
box. The vibrating part is only the free outer edge of 
each, which, as has been stated, can be tightened or 
loosened by the aid of certain muscles. The space be- 
tween the two outer edges of the vocal chords, which 
varies of course in width according to the tension of the 
chords, is called the glottal rift, or rima glottidis. When 



104 MODERN ENGLISH 

the edges of the chords are relaxed, allowing a wide rift 
between them, the breath from the lungs passes through 
this space without setting the chords in vibration, and, 
consequently, no sound is produced in the larynx. This 
last qualification is important, because the air from the 
lungs may still meet with some obstruction from the 
organs of the mouth or nose, in which case sound would 
be produced. If it does not, it passes out of the nose or 
mouth almost noiselessly, and the process is simply that 
of breathing. When the rift is narrowed, however, by 
the stretching of the vocal chords, the passage of the air 
makes the chords vibrate, and the sound which we call 
voice is produced. It should be clearly understood that 
the w r ord voice is here used in a restricted and special 
sense. It does not mean any sound produced by the or- 
gans of speech, but only those sounds in the production 
of which the vocal chords are set in vibration. Such 
sounds are called voiced sounds, others are voiceless. In 
whispering, voiceless sounds are produced in the same 
way as when they are given their full resonance ; but in 
the whispering of voiced sounds the vocal chords do not 
vibrate, or vibrate only slightly, altho they are made 
tense, and the glottal rift is accordingly narrowed, as in 
the production of the full-voiced sounds. 

We may now pass to those organs above the larynx 
which are important for the production of speech sound. 
They are the pharynx, the cavity of the mouth, and the 
cavity of the nose. These three spaces are together 
known as the resonance chamber, and they are of the 
greatest importance in the production of sound, because 
no column of air can proceed from the lungs which is 
not modified in some way by the resonance chamber. In 



ENGLISH SOUNDS 105 

fact, all voice as it comes from the vocal chords would 
be the same, except for differences in loudness and soft- 
ness, and it is the resonance chamber which determines 
the specific value of this sound as one vowel rather than 
another. By changing the shape of the resonance 
chamber, the speaker gets different vowel effects, 
just as the musician gets different tone effects from a 
tuba and a cornet, because the two instruments have 
tubes of different shapes and sizes, that is, have different 
resonance chambers. After it has passed through the 
larynx and into the pharynx, the breath from the lungs 
may then enter the cavity of the mouth, or of the nose, 
or both together. We shall consider, first, the cavity of 
the mouth, and, second, the nasal cavity. 

The roof of the mouth is divided into two parts, the 
soft palate, or velum, at the back part of the mouth, and 
the hard palate at the front part. The hard palate is 
fixed and motionless, except as it moves with the motion 
of the jaws. But the velum (a Latin name meaning 
" veil ") may be raised or lowered. When it is raised, 
it closes the entrance to the nasal cavity, when lowered 
it permits the air from the lungs to pass out equally 
through the nose and the mouth. Within the mouth 
the most important of the movable muscles is the tongue, 
the parts of which need no description. Beside the pal- 
ate and tongue, the teeth, gums, and lips are also used 
in the production of sounds. 

The nasal cavity or passage is a membrane-lined pas- 
sage with no movable or muscular parts. It leads out 
from the pharynx and is narrower at both ends than 
at the middle, forming thus a good resonance chamber. 
The passage is divided in the nose by a septum or par- 



106 MODERN ENGLISH 

tition, into a right and a left portion. As has been 
stated, the entrance to the nasal passage can be closed 
by raising the velum, in which case all breath passes out 
through the mouth. " Talking through the nose " is a 
popular misconception of the facts. The truth is that 
when one " talks through the nose," one does n't talk 
through the nose, as one should, but the velum is then 
raised, or the entrance to the nasal passage is closed be- 
cause of the swelling due to cold or some other disturb- 
ance of normal conditions, and the unpleasant effect 
which results is due to the lack of that resonance which 
the sound should have received by passing through the 
nasal chamber. A " nasal twang " is due to the same 
cause. It is a general principle that all sounds should 
be given as much resonance as they are capable of receiv- 
ing, and the speaker who has allowed himself to fall into 
the habit of speaking with the flat, unmusical quality of 
sound which results from the closing of the nasal pas- 
sage, should cultivate a more open method of sound 
production. The difference between the closed and the 
open nasal passage may be easily observed by first imi- 
tating the speech of one suffering from a cold and then 
speaking with the full quality of sound which normally 
characterizes the correct use of the voice. 

3. Voiced and Voiceless Sounds. Having de- 
scribed the main organs of speech, we may proceed now 
to some account of the modifications of sound produced 
by these various organs. The first important distinction 
is that between voiced and voiceless sounds. Voiced 
sounds, which are also called sonant sounds, are those 
in the production of which the vocal chords are set in 
vibration. All vowels are voiced, because vowels are 



ENGLISH SOUNDS 107 

produced by the vibration of the vocal chords, the dif- 
ference between vowels being caused by modification of 
the sound produced by these vibrations through chang- 
ing the configuration of the resonance chamber. Some 
consonants are voiced, others are voiceless. Examples 
of voiced consonants are g in go, b in boy, d in day. 

In the production of voiceless sounds, which are also 
called surd sounds, the vocal chords are not set in vibra- 
tion, but the sound is produced through modification of 
the column of air by the various organs of speech, teeth, 
tongue, and lips, after it has passed through the rift of 
the glottis without moving the vocal chords. Examples 
of voiceless consonants are p in pay, t in tin, k (c) in 
king, can. By placing the finger on the Adam's apple 
one can, with a little practice, easily feel the vibration 
of the voice box in the production of voiced sounds, and 
can thus distinguish sounds which are voiced from those 
which are not, thus confirming the testimony of the 
ears. In pronouncing a voiceless consonant one should 
distinguish between the consonant and the vowel that 
accompanies it. The name of the letter t, for example, 
consists of the voiceless consonant t, followed by a vowel 
which is the same as the vowel in tea, he, see, etc. In 
forming consonants for the purpose of observing them, 
always distinguish between the consonant and any accom- 
panying vowel. 

4. Vowels and Consonants. When the passages 
through the mouth and through the nose are left open, 
so that the air, passing through the larynx and there set- 
ting the vocal chords in vibration, may continue without 
further obstruction through these passages to the outer 
air, a vowel sound is produced. The passage is widest 



108 MODERN ENGLISH 

open in pronouncing the vowel a in father ; it is vari- 
ously modified in pronouncing the other vowels, but at 
no time is it completely closed, coming nearest to being 
so in pronouncing the vowel ee in seen, keen, etc. It 
should be noticed that vowels can be lengthened indefi- 
nitely in pronunciation, the only question being the 
amount of breath one has at one's disposal. 

When the column of air from the lungs, as it ap- 
proaches the outer air, is (a) completely stopped, or (b) 
completely stopped at one point but allowed to escape 
at another, the sound produced is a consonant. In the 
first case, when the column of air is completely stopped, 
the consonant produced is called a stop consonant or 
explosive, both names being descriptive of the method 
of formation of these sounds. Examples of stop or ex- 
plosive consonants are g, b, d, k, p, t. Stop consonants, 
since they are produced by a sudden and momentary 
explosion of the breath, cannot be lengthened. 

In the second case, when the column of air is only 
partly stopped in its escape to the outer air, the conso- 
nant produced is called a continuant consonant. Contin- 
uants are of various kinds, caused by the interference of 
different parts of the speech organs. They consist (1) of 
spirants, caused by the interference of the teeth and lips 
with the column of air ; spirants may be voiced, as, for 
example, v in vat ; s (z) in phrase ; ih in father ; or 
voiceless, like / in fat ; c (s) in place ; th in thin ; (2) 
of liquids or Unguals, caused by the interference of the 
tongue with the column of air, as, for example, I and r ; 
(3) of nasals, caused by the complete obstruction of the 
exit through the mouth, causing thus all the air to pass 
through the nose; the examples are m and n; (4) of 



ENGLISH SOUNDS 109 

labials, caused by the interference of the lips, as in w. The 
continuants, like the vowels, may all be continued in- 
definitely in pronunciation as long as the breath holds out. 
5. Classification of Consonants. Beside the clas- 
sification of consonants as voiced and voiceless, stop or 
continuant, consonants are further classified and named 
according to the part of the mouth or nasal passage 
which is chiefly concerned in their production. Thus 
we have 

(a) Labials or lip consonants. These may be either bi- 
labials, e. g., b, p, m, w, in which both lips are instrumental 
in forming the respective sounds ; or labio-dentals, e. g., /, v, 
in which lips and teeth are the main obstructions. 

(&) Alveolar, or tongue and gum sounds. Examples are 
d, t } z, s. These sounds are formed by pressing the tip of the 
tongue against the gums just back of the upper front teeth. 
They are sometimes wrongly called dental consonants, on the 
supposition that the tongue in forming them is placed against 
the upper front teeth ; this, however, is not the case in the 
normal English formation of these sounds, tho the French 
t is a real dental, the tongue being pressed hard against the 
upper teeth in the pronunciation of it. 

(c) Dental, or tooth and tongue consonants. In the 
formation of this sound, found in English only in th as in 
thine or father, the tip of the tongue is pressed against the 
roots of the upper front teeth. 

(d) Palatals, or tongue and palate consonants. These 
consonants are usually grouped in two classes: (1) those 
formed by the tongue and hard palate, called front palatals, 
as, for example, g in give; k in keen; ch in chin; dg in 
ridge ; sh in sheen ; z (spelled s or z) in azure, pleasure ; (2) 
those formed by the tongue and the back or soft palate, 
called back palatals, or gutturals, or velars, as in g in gone ; 
Jc (written c) in cough, cold. Note carefully the difference 



110 



MODERN ENGLISH 



between the initial consonants in keen and cold ; geese and 
gold. 

(e) Lingual, or tongue consonants, in which the tongue is 
chiefly instrumental in forming the sounds, as in Z, r. There 
are various kinds of I and r in English, but I is usually alveo- 
lar-lingual, that is, the tongue is placed against the upper 
gums, and r is usually hard palate-lingual. 

(/) Nasal or nose consonants, in the formation of which 
the nose and lips, or the nose and some other part of the 
mouth, are instrumental. Nasal consonants may be classified 
as (1) bilabial, as m in man; (2) alveolar, as n in near ; 

(3) front palatal, as ng in king (observe that ng is pronounced 
as a single nasal consonant, not two consonants, n and g) ; 

(4) back palatal or guttural, as ng in long (again pronounced 
as a single consonant). 

In fully describing and naming a consonant, there- 
fore, it will be observed that there are three things to 
be noticed, first, whether it is a voiced or voiceless con- 
sonant; second, whether it is a stop or continuant; and, 
third, what parts of the vocal organs are chiefly instru- 
mental in its formation. The following table gives a 
list of the most important English consonants from 
these three points of view: 







Bila- 
bial. 


Labio- 
dental. 


Dental. 


Alveo- 
lar. 


Front 
palatal. 


Back 
palatal. 


Lingual. 


Nasal. 


Stops. J 


Voiced 

Voice- 
less 


b 
P 


"\ 




d . 
t 


g (as in 
geese") 

k(asin 
keen) 


g (asfn 
gold) 

k(c) (as 
in cold) 






Con- J 


Voiced 




V 


th (as in 

father) 


z (as in 
please) 


dg(asin 
ridge) 
z (as in 
azure) 




1 

r 


m 
n 


tinu- "j 
ants. 1 


Voice- 
less 




f 


th(as 
in thin) 


8 


shfasin 
sheen) 
ch (as 
in chin) 









ENGLISH SOUNDS 111 

6. Classification of Vowels. The vowels lend them- 
selves less readily to description and classification than 
the consonants, because the positions and movements of 
the organs of voice in the production of vowels are less 
easily observed and stated than they are in the produc- 
tion of consonants. Somewhat loosely, vowels are often 
spoken of as (a) front palatal vowels, in which the 
voiced sound is modified by narrowing the passage of 
the mouth by means of raising the tongue towards the 
hard palate, and (b) back palatal or guttural vowels, 
formed further back in the mouth, by the tongue and 
the soft palate. Front palatal vowels are a (in man) ; 
e (in let) ; a (in hate) ; ey (in they) ; ay (in say) ; i (in 
kin) ; i (in machined) ; ee (in seen). Back palatal or 
guttural vowels are oo (in food) ; oo (in wood, good) ; 
o (in bone); o (in not); i (in mine); a (in father); a (in 
fall). A loose distinction often made is that between 
close and open vowels, the tongue in the close vowel 
being raised further toward the roof of the mouth than 
in the open vowel. Thus the vowel o is said to be close 
in note, but open in not; the vowel e is said to be 
close in the borrowed word fete (or in the case of the 
same sound with different spelling, in the native words 
mate, late, etc.), but open in the word men. The mechan- 
ical device of placing the cedilla beneath the vowel to 
indicate the open quality is sometimes used, as in 9, e. 
The classification of vowels as close and open is not a 
good one, however, since o and o, e and e, are, so far as 
sound goes, which is the essential matter, really two 
quite different vowels, tho written alike, and each, 
in an exact system, should have its distinctive name. 
Another distinction which is often loosely and incor- 



112 MODERN ENGLISH 

rectly made is that between long and short vowels. 
The vowel o of not is said to be the short vowel, the 
long of which is exemplified in note ; so also the vowel 
of met is said to be the short e sound, the vowel of they, 
the long e sound. But an examination of these sounds 
will show that o of not is not merely the o of note short- 
ened, nor is e of met merely the shortened sound of the 
vowel of they. The difference is not merely that of 
length, but also of quality; and we have to do with 
two entirety separate and different vowel sounds in each 
case. In using the terminology long and short, care 
should be taken that the vowels so described are really 
of the same kind. Thus the first vowel of the word 
motive is the short sound of the vowel in note, the two 
sounds differing only in the degree to which they are 
prolonged, and the long vowel sound of fate is short 
in the first syllable of the compound pay-roll. 

A real distinction which should be observed is that 
between simple vowels and diphthongs. A simple vowel, 
as its name indicates, is one which consists of only one 
vowel sound; a diphthong is a double sound which 
begins with one vowel quality and shades off at the end 
into another. The vowels of note, of fate, of food are 
all simple vowels; but the vowel of house, now, slough 
is a double sound, starting with the sound of a in father, 
and ending with the sound of u, giving the combination 
au (so spelled in German haus, laut, etc.). The other 
English diphthongs are the vowel of try, buy, ride, com- 
posed of a + i, equivalent therefore to ai, and the 
diphthong o + i, that is oi, as exemplified in boil, boy, 
coin. It should be noted that simple vowels are some- 
times written with two letters, as, for example, the 



ENGLISH SOUNDS 113 

simple vowel in great, pair, lead, pay, iho(ugli), and 
man) r others ; and, on the other hand, that diphthongs 
are often written with one letter, as in ride, try, etc. 
One should observe always, therefore, the sound and 
not the spelling in determining whether a vowel is a 
diphthong or not. 

7. Alphabet and Sounds. The symbols or letters 
of which our alphabet is composed are, it is obvious, 
quite conventional and arbitrary. There is no inherent 
reason why the symbol T, with its variant forms t and £$> 
or the symbol D, with its other forms d and jQ,, should 
stand each for its own sound. So far as the appropriate- 
ness of the symbols to the sounds goes, they might be 
interchanged without loss. Originally alphabetic sym- 
bols may have had some peculiar appropriateness to the 
sounds which they represented, either as a sort of " visible 
speech," indicating the position of the vocal organs by 
the shape of the symbol, or as " picture writing," like the 
hieroglyphics of the Egyptians, indicating objects which 
bore definite relations to the various sounds. The 
English alphabet, however, has long since passed out of 
any such stage of development, and is now a set of in- 
trinsically meaningless symbols to which specific values 
are arbitrarily attached. 

It is also obvious that the number of sounds used in 
speaking the English language is greater than the 
number of symbols available for representing sounds. 
A conservative estimate would make the number of 
clearly distinguishable different English sounds about 
forty ; the number of symbols in the alphabet is twenty- 
six. The language, therefore, has not at its command a 
sufficient number of characters to represent all its sounds, 



114 MODERN ENGLISH 

and is driven consequently to use the same symbol for 
different sounds, as, for example, the vowel a in the 
words hat, hate, path, bare, ball, about. The conven- 
tional symbols of the alphabet, it is thus seen, may vary 
as to their significance within certain pretty wide limits. 

If we turn now to the sounds of the language them- 
selves, we shall find them in many ways very imperfectly 
and inconsistently represented. Thus we may have a 
simple sound represented by two symbols, as the vowel 
ea of seat, or the consonant th of thing. Or the same 
sound may be represented by several different symbols 
or groups of symbols, as, for example, the sound of s (<?) 
in race and erase ; or of k in call, king, quell, shock, box ; 
or the vowel sound which appears in the words late, pay, 
great, fail, veil, they, fete. Or the same group of letters 
may represent such various values as ough in bough, 
through, thought, cough, hiccough, enough. Letters are 
frequently used, also, without any value, the so-called 
silent letters, like the e of bare, the c of scissors, the k of 
knife, the s of island, aisle, the w of write, the g of 
foreign, sovereign. 

If these facts are held in mind, we shall be understood 
when we say that English is not a phonetic language. 
It is of course true that our alphabet does represent for 
us the sounds of the language ; but it represents these 
sounds in an imperfect and inconsistent way. A per- 
fectly phonetic language would be one in which every 
sound had its appropriate symbol, and no sj^mbol more 
than its single value. Needless to say, neither the 
English language nor any other language ever in prac- 
tical use has been thus perfectly phonetic. Languages 
vary in the degree of consistency and completeness with 



ENGLISH SOUNDS 115 

which they endeavor to represent their sounds, and the 
earlier periods of English were much more sensitive in 
this respect than modern English is. Of the modern 
European languages, Italian is the most phonetic, French 
and German coming between English and Italian at the 
two extremes. But even Italian is not completely pho- 
netic, and all we can say of the existing languages is 
that one is more phonetic than another. For the prac- 
tical uses to which language is usually put, the carrying 
of a complete and exact system of sound representation 
would be an unnecessary burden. It is not important 
that every minute difference of sound should have its 
own particular symbol, since the language would be made 
no more intelligible thereby. Practical utility, however, 
demands that a language be phonetic to a certain degree, 
and without question it is a grave defect in the English 
language that the gap between its written and printed 
symbols, that is its spelling, and the actual sounds of the 
words of the language, is so great. Indeed the values of 
the letters of our ordinary alphabet are so various and 
uncertain, that it becomes necessary to settle beforehand 
upon some scheme of sound representation before it is 
possible to discuss matters which have to do with sound 
changes, pronunciation, and spelling. 1 

8. A Phonetic Alphabet. The purposes for which 
a phonetic alphabet may be devised are various. The 

1 English has an adverb too, a preposition to, and a numeral two. 
What shall we say in writing, that there are three too's, or three to's, or 
three two's, in English? In fact there is of course only one of each. The 
idea we want to express is that there is a single phonetic word-form which 
has three logical values ; but to express this unequivocally, we need to be 
able to express the phonetic form of the words merely as sound, not as 
one word or the other. 



116 MODERN ENGLISH 

scientific student of phonetics may elaborate some 
scheme whereby the minutest shades of difference in 
the quality and stress of sounds shall be indicated ; such 
a system would be almost phonographic in its exactness. 
Or the " phonetic reformer " may invent a " practical " 
alphabet which he would have take the place of our 
present alphabet in daily printing and writing. The 
ideal of the scientific student is beyond our present 
purpose ; and the vain hope of the phonetic reformer we 
may set aside as belonging to the group of those vision- 
ary projects, the realization of which is neither possible 
nor desirable. But the modest needs of the e very-day 
student of language demand also some system of pho- 
netic representation, one that is simple and intelligible, 
and at the same time capable of recording the essential 
characteristics of English sounds. It will be understood 
that the alphabet which is here presented is for this 
purpose ; it is intended merely as an aid in the discussion 
of pronunciation, of spelling, and of sounds in general. 1 
The alphabet makes use, so far as possible, of the ordi- 
nary letters of our English alphabet. Long vowels are 
indicated by the circumflex ("). No sound has more 
than one symbol, and no symbol has more than one 
value. The number of sounds, and consequently the 
number of symbols, is forty-five, eighteen being simple 
vowels, four being diphthongs, and twenty-three being 
consonant sounds. Arranged in alphabetic order, they 
are as follows : 



1 The alphabet is a slightly modified form of that recommended in the 
Report of a Joint Committee representing the American Philological Associa- 
tion, and the Modern Language Association of America, on the Subject of a 
Phonetic English Alphabet. New York, 1904. 



ENGLISH SOUNDS 117 

Letteb. Key-words. 

a (a)rt, p(a)rt, h(ea)rt, f(a)ther, 

c(a)lra. 

a (a)rtistic, h(o)t, r(o)ck, n(o)t. 

as b(a)re, h(ei)r, st(ai)r. 

ge b(a)t, m(a)tter, h(a)s. 

d (a)sk, p(a)th. 

b (b)e. 

d (d)o. 

e m(a)te, th(ey), s(ay). 

e m^t: 1 

f (f jee. 

g (g)o. 

r) si(ng). 

h (h)e. 

i mar(i)ne, s(ee). 

i t(i)n. 

j (=dz) Q)aw. 

P(=tj) (cb)ew. 

k (k)in. 

1 (l)et. 

m (m)et. • 

n (D)et. 

e ...... f(a)ll. 

e (au)tumnal. 

6 n(o)te. 

o d(o)nation. 

P (P) 1 *- 

r (r)at. 

s (s)et. 

J (Bh)ip. 

t (t)en. 

1 For practical purposes it has not been deemed necessary to make here 

the distinction between close and open e, noted above. The same ap- 
plies to i and o. 



118 MODERN ENGLISH 

Lettbe. Key-worm. 

]> . . . . . (th)in. 

n (th)at. 

u m(oo)d. 

u p(u)sh. 

u h(u)t. 

a (a)bout. 

v (v)at. 

w (w)in. 

y (y)es. 

z (z)est. 

3 a(z)ure, plea(s)ure, lei(s)ure. 

ai r(i)de, s(i)gh, (ey)e, b(uy). 

au h(ou)se. 

ei b(oi)l. 

iu t(u)be. 

The use of most of these symbols is self-explanatory, 
over half being exactly as one would most readily in- 
fer from their use in the Modern English alphabet. Of 
the others, however, a few words of explanation are 
needed. In the first place, it should be noted that the 
symbols a, e, i, 6, u have what is known as their conti- 
nental values, that is, the values which they have in all 
the European languages except English, and which in 
the earlier periods of English they had also in that 
language. The vowel a* has, therefore, the value of the 
vowel in father, e that of the vowel oifate, i that of the 
second vowel of machine, 6 that of note, and u that of 
food. The five different sounds with which the alphabet 
opens seem a bit confusing at first. But as, as in at, is 
our familiar sound, found in numberless words like cat, 
fat, that, immaculate, infatuate, etc. The long value of 
this sound appears in words like air, there, lair, pare, 



ENGLISH SOUNDS 119 

pear, etc. The value of a is the broad sound which 
appears in father, palm, calm, retard, and a is its cor- 
responding short sound. The vowel intended by the 
symbol d is a transition vowel between £ in father and a3 
in bare. It is pronounced by many Americans in words 
like path, bath, grass, master, France, glance, raft, laugh, 
calf, that is, in words in which the vowel comes before 
a voiceless continuant, /, s, th, or a nasal followed by a 
voiceless continuant. In some communities, however, 
the vowel in these words is pronounced flat, like re, and 
in others it is pronounced very broad, like & (see § 11 
for a further discussion of this sound). 

The symbol rj represents a nasalized g, as in sing, thing. 
It is a simple sound, altho it is written, in our conven- 
tional spelling, with the two letters ng ; if these two 
letters were actually pronounced, however, we should 
have a word of the phonetic form sin-gd, thin-gd. In 
a word like finger, which is pronounced fing-ger, not 
fin-ger, we have a nasalized g (that is, rj) followed by 
the regular g. The different sounds here described 
should be practiced until the distinctions are perfectly 
clear. 

The symbol c is invented to express the continuant 
consonant usually represented by ch in the regular 
alphabet. A phonetic alphabet should have its symbols 
consist of but single letters, and it was necessary there- 
fore to invent one for the purpose of representing this 
sound. The four sounds of o are easily distinguish- 
able. Other examples of are aive, awful, aught, ought 
all, lord, form, storm, dog, cloth. The corresponding 
short sound does not occur frequently ; examples are 
the first syllable of audacious, autocratic, auditor. The 6 



120 MODERN ENGLISH 

of note, boat, vote, loan, snow, hoe, tho(ugh), toll, etc., is a 
very common sound ; the corresponding short sound, o, is 
usually found in dissyllables or polysyllables ; examples 
are the first syllable of poetic, bohemian, rotation, co- 
operate, also the second syllable of window, furlough, 
borrow. The continuant usually represented by sh in the 
regular alphabet has again to have a new symbol, J\ 
The symbols p> and S, borrowed from the Old English 
alphabet, represent respectively the voiceless dental con- 
tinuant, as in thin, thick, thing, thought, etc., and the 
voiced dental continuant, as in thee, those, their, etc. 
The two sounds represented by u and a are similar, but 
should be distinguished. The sound u occurs only in 
stressed syllables, as in up, but, puff, love, above, dull, 
courage. The sound 9, known as " weak e," is an interest- 
ing sound of wide occurrence. It is what might be called 
the indifferent or obscure vowel, and is the sound which 
all other vowels tend to become when they are not pro- 
nounced clearly and distinctly. Vowels are especially 
liable to become 9 when they are not supported by the 
stress. Thus the article the is rarely pronounced fully, 
as Si, unless for some special reason it is strongly 
stressed ; usually it is pronounced S9, as in the sentence 
I saw the president yesterday. But other words in this sen- 
tence are likewise slightly stressed, and when the sen- 
tence is somewhat rapidly spoken, the vowel I, the 
second and third vowel of president, and the second 
vowel of yesterday, all tend to become this obscure vowel. 
The phonetic transcription of this sentence, therefore, as 
it would be spoken in ordinary colloquial English, is as 
follows : 9 so (59 Prezgdgnt yestgrde. 

For the purpose of further study of the alphabet and 



ENGLISH SOUNDS 121 

practice in using it, a part of Lincoln's Gettysburg 
Address is here given with its phonetic transcription : 1 

" Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth 
on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and 
dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. 
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether 
that nation, so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. 
We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have 
come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting- 
place for those who gave their lives that that nation might 
live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do 
this." 

for skor and sevan yirz ago aur faSarz bret for]? on Sis 
kontinent a niu nefan, kansivd in libarti and dediketid tu 
Sa propazijan Sat ©1 men ar krietid ikwal. nau wi ar ingejd 
in a gret sivil wor, testirj hweSar Sset nefan. so kansivd send 
so dediketid, ksen lorj endiur. wi ar met on a gret baetal-fild 
av Saet wor. wi haev kum tu dediket a porjan av Sset fild 
aez a fainal restirj-ples for ftoz hu Mr gev ftser laivz Sat Saet 
nejan mait liv. it iz ©ltugeSar fitirj and prepar Sat wi Jud 
du Sis. 

To one unfamiliar with it, a phonetic transcription 
such as the above seems funny at first, and of course a 
good deal of the humor of dialect stories and poems 
consists in an attempted phonetic, or partially phonetic, 
transcription of actual speech. This humorous effect is 
due largely to the novelty of the new forms, which in- 
trinsically are obviously no more humorous than the 
symbols of the regular alphabet. That which is novel 
seems funny, especially when we already have a habit of 
mind established by a different custom. Thus a style 

1 Report of a Joint Committee, p. 39. 



122 MODERN ENGLISH 

of hat two or three years old would excite laughter, 
altho it may differ comparatively little from the con- 
temporary style, in its own time may have been the 
height of the fashion, and in another year or two may 
again become the correct or conventional style. Com- 
pare also the common inclination of the uneducated 
and untraveled to regard all customs and habits which 
differ from their own as ridiculous. 

9. Sound Changes. Sounds are the least stable ele- 
ment in language. The words themselves, the order of 
the words, the written or printed forms, all these, tho 
they are subject to constant change, are relatively fixed 
and permanent as compared with sounds. The most 
sensitive part of language, sounds respond delicately to 
the slightest and most evanescent influences. It is 
probable that if complete phonographic records could be 
taken of the speech of an individual, it would be found 
that no phrase or sentence phonetically ever exactly re- 
peated itself. We may compare the sound-material of 
the language to a restless, ever-fluctuating ocean, always 
in its essentials the same, but never two moments the 
same in the forms assumed by the elements of which it 
is composed. It is of the nature of sound, which is the 
mere passing breath of a moment, that it should be 
difficult to hold or fix sharply in the memory; and it is 
only by constant practice and use that we are able to 
keep the sounds of our language even approximately the 
same. For, with all our effort, we do not succeed in 
preventing many changes. Day by day, minute by 
minute, shif tings of our sounds are taking place, and 
tho most of these are too minute to attract attention 
at the time, in the course of years, of a generation or two, 



ENGLISH SOUNDS 123 

they result in the substitution of altogether new sounds 
for the old ones. Just as the light of day at two suc- 
cessive moments appears to be the same, but is not, since 
it is by the accumulation of momentary changes that the 
great result of day and night is obtained, so our speech, 
which at a given moment we think we hold firmly in 
our grasp, is constantly slipping away and assuming 
new forms. 

So far as human observation goes, it is difficult to see 
that anything is gained by the constant series of changes 
which are affecting the phonetic side of language. No 
process of beneficent evolution, or the contrary, has 
been at work in the vast majority of the changes in 
English sound, no principles of development reveal 
themselves. In this respect language differs from its 
history on the side of its inflections and vocabulary. 
The changes in the English inflectional system have re- 
sulted in a greater simplicity and efficiency in the struc- 
ture of the English language ; and the development of 
the vocabulary has made the language richer and more 
variously expressive. But sound changes appear to 
have taken place largely without any end in view, merely 
because it is the nature of sound to be impermanent and 
variable. 

Many of the changes which take place in language 
sounds are so slight and of such momentary importance 
that they never demand consideration. It is not essen- 
tial to intelligibility that the sounds of language should 
always conform to what we may regard as the perfect 
types of the sounds. We allow a considerable latitude in 
the speech of individuals, for we understand when words 
are only approximately correctly pronounced. There is, 



124 MODERN ENGLISH 

therefore, a large area of negligible variation in the 
sounds of speech. When a sound change, however, is 
persistent, so that it affects the language in general, 
or the particular language of a community, it then 
becomes matter worthy of observation, and, so far as 
is possible, of scientific generalization. Generaliza- 
tion of this sort, based on the observation of sound 
changes which have proceeded in a regular fashion, 
are known as phonetic laws. It should be clearly un- 
derstood, however, that phonetic laws are laws only 
in the sense that they state what takes place, not that 
they imply a lawgiver who makes a law which they 
must follow. Like the laws of physics, the law that 
night succeeds day, or that water when frozen expands, 
the laws of sounds are based entirely upon experiment 
and observation. 

Sound laws are therefore general habits or customs, 
and a discussion of why sound laws should arise would 
be a discussion of why and how general habits and cus- 
toms are formed. Imitation is undoubtedly the most 
powerful single factor in bringing about uniformity in 
the use of language, therefore the most powerful single 
factor in the formation of linguistic laws. This applies 
not only to sounds but to all other aspects of language. 
This imitation may be conscious or unconscious, tho 
it is usually the latter. Children, for example, imitate 
the sounds and the words which they habitually hear, 
without giving any thought to the matter. They accept 
blindly the authority of their elders, and it is only adult 
people, who have learned to observe their speech and to 
reason about it, who become aware of the changes that 
are taking place. But even among adults the conscious 



ENGLISH SOUNDS 125 

attitude of mind towards language is relatively rare. 
They also usually form their habits in language by an 
unconscious adaptation to the familiar use about them. 
It is obvious that no discredit attaches to imitation of 
the kind we are describing. Every one must be imita- 
tive to a very large extent in his use of speech, because 
speech is a common social possession and not the right 
of any one individual. There could be no worse kind of 
speech than one which was altogether original, altogether 
different from the speech of others, because such speech 
would be unintelligible. 

Many sound changes are due in their origins to or- 
ganic causes, such as the modification of the physical 
organs of sound-production. Thus it is a general and 
obvious principle that a syllable which bears a heavy 
stress is likely to be pronounced more sharply and dis- 
tinctly than it would be if it bore only a light stress. 
Or the rapidity with which one speaks will usually be 
observed to affect very markedly the clearness and dis- 
tinctness of the sounds. Changes which are due to such 
natural tendencies as these affect the people altogether ; 
they tend to become general, therefore, without imita- 
tion, because the same natural law operates upon all 
equally. It will be necessary now to examine the changes 
in sounds more fully from these two points of view, the 
imitative and the organic tendencies towards change in 
the sounds of speech. 

10. Imitative Sound Changes. It is only when we 
look back over the history of English sounds and observe 
them in a long perspective that we can see the results of 
imitative sound laws on a large scale. When we com- 
pare the system of sounds used in Old English, however, 



126 



MODERN ENGLISH 



with that used in Modern English, we see that there has 
been an almost complete displacement. This is especially 
trne of the vowels, which are always much less stable 
than the consonants, our Modern English consonants 
differing on the whole but little from their use fifteen 
hundred years ago. The vowels, however, have under- 
gone great changes. Words which in Old English, for 
example, had the vowel a, by the Middle English period 
had changed this vowel to e, and Modern English has 
gone a step further and changed the Middle English © 
into 6. Thus Old English stan (st&n), became Middle 
English ston (sten), and Modern English stone (ston). 
Following the same phonetic law, Old English ban (ban) 
became Middle English bon (ben), Modern English bone 
(bon) ; Old English bat (bat) became Middle English bot 
(bet), Modern English boat (bot). Other instances of the 
operation of the same rule, or law, are the following : 



Old English. 


Middle English. 


Modern English. 


gan (gan) 


gon 


(gen) 


g° (go) 


wrat (wrat) 1 


ivrot 


(wret) 


wrote (rot) 


fam (fam) 


fom 


(fern) 


foam (fom) 


blawan (blawan) 


blowen 


(blewan) 


blow (bio) 


papa (papa) 


pope 


(pepa) 


pope (pop) 


rva (wa) 


wo 


(we) 


woe (wo) 



Other vowels have changed just as completely. Thus 
Old English 6, omitting the transition stages, has become 
regularly u in Modern English, as illustrated by the fol- 
lowing examples : 



1 The w in wr, as well as the h in hi, hr, were all pronounced in the Old 
English period. 



ENGLISH SOUNDS 



127 



Old English. 


Modern English. 


mod (mod) 


mood 


(mud) 


bloma (bloma) 


bloom 


(blum) 


col (kol) 


cool 


(kul) 


don (don) 


do 


(du) 


hrof (hrof) 


roof 


(ruf) 


scoh (skoh) 


shoe 


(J*) 



To complete the list of the long vowels, Old English 
e has become the Modern English i ; Old English i 
has become the Modern English diphthong ai ; and Old 
English u has become the Modern English diphthong au. 
These three groups of changes are illustrated by the 
following words: 



Old English. 


Modeen English. 


cen 


(ken) 


keen 


(kin) 


seon 


(seon) 


see 


(si) 


med 


(med) 


meed 


(mid) 


slepan 


(slepan) 


sleep 


(slip) 


pipe 


(pipe) 


pipe 


(paip) 


hwit 


(hwit) 


white 


(hwait) 


nnd 


(wid) 


wide 


(waid) 


is 


(is) 


ice 


(ais) 


hus 


(hus) 


house 


(haus) 


mu]> 


(mup) 


mouth 


(maup) 


hiud 


(hlud) 


loud 


(laud) 


bru 


(bru) 


brow 


(brau) 



If we should continue our examination of the other 
vowels and diphthongs, short and long, of the Old Eng- 
lish period, we should find that nearly every one of them 
had shifted greatly from its original form, that the origi- 
nal form had become lost, and that through imitation a 



128 MODERN ENGLISH 

new form had become general and regular. Just who it 
was who started each specific change, and for what rea- 
son, it is impossible to say. It is not probable that at 
any period one could put his hand on a definite individ- 
ual, or group of individuals, and say that this person or 
that was responsible for a specific change. The changes 
advanced undoubtedly by minute , degrees, and the man 
of the Old English or the Middle English period was at 
no time conscious that his speech was changing to such 
an extent that a few hundred years later it would seem 
to his descendants almost entirely a different language 
from their own. There is no reason to believe that our 
own speech to-day is much more stable than was that of 
the Old English period. Unconsciously to ourselves we 
are being drifted here and there on those currents of 
speech-sounds which our descendants two or three hun- 
dred years hence will be able to trace through their 
curves and meanderings, and thus to formulate and gen- 
eralize into phonetic laws, as now we formulate the 
changes in the speech of our Old English ancestors. In 
some few instances, however, we can trace changes and 
tendencies in our contemporary speech, and these deserve 
a few words of special consideration. Before passing on 
to the consideration of contemporary imitative sound 
changes, it may be interesting to examine a passage of 
Old English and the same passage in Middle English in 
their respective phonetic forms, and to compare these 
earlier sounds of the language with those of Modern 
English. For this purpose we may choose a passage 
from the New Testament, giving it first in an Old Eng- 
lish version, made before the year 1000, accompanied by 
a literal translation and a phonetic transcription, and 



ENGLISH SOUNDS 



129 



then the same passage in Wycliffe's version, made in the 
last quarter of the fourteenth century. The Old Eng- 
lish version is as follows : 



Da hi set ham wseron, he 
ahsode hi: "Hwaet smeacje ge 
be wege ? " 

Ond hi suwodon. Witod- 
Hce hi on wege smeadon 
hwylc hyra yldost wsere. 

pa he sset, he clypode hi 
twelfe oud ssede him: "Gif 
eower hwylc wyle beon fyr- 
mest, beo se eaSmodust ond 
cower ealra pen." 

pa nam he anne cnapan 
ond gesette on hyra middele. 
pa he hine beclypte, he ssede 
him : 

"Swa hwylc swa, anne of 
pus geradum cnapum on mi- 
num naman onfehft, se onfehS 
me. And se pe me onfehft, 
he ne onfehS me, ac pone pe 
me sende." 1 — Mark ix, 33-37. 



pa, hi set ham wseron, h§ 
aksode hi: "hwaet smseade 
ye be weye ? " 

Ond hi suwodon. Witod- 
like hi on weye smseadon 
hwilk hira ildost wsere. 

pa he sset, he klipode hi 
twelve ond ssede him: "Yif 
eower hwilk wile beon fir- 
mest^ beo se seacSmodust ond 
eower sealra ]?en." 

pa nam he anne knapan 
ond yesette on hira middele. 
pa he hine bekli'pte, he ssede 
him : 

"Swa hwilk swa anne of 
pus yera'dum knapum on mi- 
num naman enfe'hp, se on- 
fe'hp me. 0nd se fte me 
onfe'hp, he ne enfe'hp m§, 
ak pone Se me sende." 2 



1 From Skeat, The Holy Gospels in Anglo-Saxon, Northumbrian and Old 
Mercian Versions, Cambridge, 1871-1887. Literally translated this goes as 
follows : " When they at home were, he asked them : ' What considered 
ye by the way? ' Arid they were silent (suwodon). Verily they on the 
way considered which of them eldest (i. e., most honorable) was. When 
he sat, he called them twelve and said to them : ' If of you any will be 
foremost, be he humblest and of you all servant.' Then he took a boy and 
set him (the pronoun is not expressed) in their midst. When he embraced 
him, he said to them : ' Whosoever one of such boys (of pus geradum 
cnapum) in my name receives, he receives me. And he who receives me, 
he receives not me, but him who sent me.' " 

2 The stress is always on the first syllable of dissyllabic and polysyllabic 
words, unless otherwise indicated. 

9 



130 



MODERN ENGLISH 



The same passage from the Wycliffe Bible is as fol- 
lows : 



And whanne thei weren in 
the hous, he axide hem : 
"What tretiden ye in the 
weie?" 

And thei weren stille. For 
thei disputiden among hem in 
the weie, who of hem schulde 
be grettest. 

And he sat, and clepide 
the twelue, and seide to hem: 
"If ony man wole be the 
firste among you, he schal be 
the laste of alle, and the 
mynyster of alle. 

And he took a child, and 
sette hym in the myddil of 
hem. And whanne he hadde 
biclippid hym, he seide to 
hem, 

Who euer resseyueth oon 
of such children in my name, 
he resseyueth me. And who 
euer resseyueth me, he res- 
seyueth not me aloone, but 
hym that sente me. 1 

It may be of interest to add the same passage in the 
King James version : 

33 And being in the houfe, he afked them, What was it 
that yee difputed among your selues by the way. 

1 From The New Testament in English according to the Version by John 
Wycliffe about A. D. 1380 and revised by John Purvey about A. D. 1388. 
Ed. Forshall and Madden, Oxford, 1879. 



and hwana fte weran in <Sa 
hus, he aksida hem: " hwat 
tretidan ye in $a weya ? " 

and 8e weran stila. For 8s 
disputidan amerj hem in 8a 
weya,, hwo of hem Julda be 
gretast. 

and he sat, and klepida Sa 
twelve, and seda to hem : if 
eni man wola be Sa firsta amerj 
iu, he Jal bs <5a lasta of alia, 
and (Sa ministar of alia. 

and he tok a £ild, and seta 
him in fta midil ef hem. and 
hwana he hada biklipid him, 
he seda to hem, 

hwe evar resevap en of 
sue eildran in mi nama, he re- 
sevaj? me. and hwe evar re- 
sevej? me, he resevaj? net me 
alone, but him Sat senta me. 



ENGLISH SOUNDS 131 

34 But they held their peace, For by the way they had 
difputed among themselues who should be the greateft. 

35 And he fate downe, and called the twelue and faith 
unto thern, If any man defire to be firft, the fame fhall be 
laft of all, and feruant of all. 

36 And he tooke a child, and fet him in the midft of 
them ; & when he had taken him in his arms, he laid unto 
them, 

37 Whofoeuer fhall receiue one of fuch children in my 
Name, receiueth me; and whofoeuer fhall receiue me, receiu- 
eth not me, but him that fent me. 1 

11. Contemporary Imitative Sound Changes. 

One of the most frequently discussed instances of con- 
temporary sound change is that which centers about the 
pronunciation of certain words containing the vowel se 
or a. Without attempting to follow the history of these 
sounds through the whole course of their development, 
Ave shall merely point out the fact that they have been 
constantly changing, that the word path was pronounced 
p&p by one generation, paf> by another, and pap by still 
another. Generally, the feeling which determined the 
use of one sound or the other seems to have been that 
the particular sound chosen was more " refined " than 
the others ; and it is a curious fact that each of the three 
sounds has at different times been elevated to this posi- 
tion of eminence. Thus in the first quarter of the nine- 
teenth century, in London the pronunciation of the 
vowel of words like path, past, ask, glass, bath, dance, 
etc., as as, like the vowel of hat, cat, etc., lengthened, 

1 The Holy Bible, London, 1611. 1st ed. of the King James Version. 
The pronunciation is approximately the same as that of Modern English. 
Notice the large number of silent letters as compared with the Middle 
English and the Old English pronunciation. 



132 MODERN ENGLISH 

was regarded as elegant, and, of course, by those to 
whom it was strange, as affected. This is well illustrated 
by Leigh Hunt's description of a night watchman, who 
was affecting the speech of his betters. "Of varieties 
among watchmen," says Hunt, 1 " we remember several. 
One was a dandy watchman who used to ply at the top 
of Oxford Street, next the park. He had a mincing way 
with it, pronouncing the a in the word past as it is in 
hat, making a little preparatory hem before he spoke, 
and then bringing out his ' past ten"* in a style of genteel 
indifference." 

A few years later, the elegant pronunciation of this 
sound in this country became established as a, that is, the 
broad sound of a in father. This was undoubtedly due, 
in the main, to the influence of the speech of New Eng- 
land, particularly Boston, which, owing to its literary 
position during the lifetime of Longfellow, Emerson, 
Hawthorne, Lowell, and the other great figures of the 
first flowering period of American literature, was often 
regarded as the seat of culture in America. J From 
Boston, where it was a normal and usual pronunciation, 
the broad sound a passed over by imitation to the speech 
of other communities. Thus Richard Grant White, 2 a 
native of New York and the arbiter of taste in his day, 
goes so far as to say that " The full, free, unconscious 
utterance of the broad ah sound of a is the surest indica- 
tion, in speech, of social culture which began at the 
cradle." To a certain extent the educated American 
public seemed to agree with this astonishing dictum ; 
conscientious speakers, if they did not have it naturally, 

1 Walks Home by Night. The Companion, Feb. 6, 1 828. 

2 Words and Their Uses, Chapter III, p. 50 (New York, 1899). 



ENGLISH SOUXDS 183 

tried to cultivate this broad ah sound which was to be 
the test of social culture, and it was, and still is, to some 
extent, taught in schools as the only correct and elegant 
pronunciation. But the public was not prepared to go 
the whole way, and instead of the full, broad a as in 
father, it has now shown a tendency to compromise on a 
vowel between ge of hat lengthened, and a of father, a 
vowel for which we use the symbol &. This vowel, which 
has been well described as a" refined transition " between 
a and se, is the one which is now, or is tending to become, 
the natural and normal use of certain communities in 
America, chiefly in the East, in words like path, past, 
glass, master, dance, glance, plant, ansiver, etc., and 
which is largely imitated by speakers in communities in 
which the natural and native pronunciation of the vowel 
in these w^ords is £3. Whether the vowel d will ever 
become natural and general all over the country, or 
whether the pendulum will swing back and x or a" 
become the refined and imitated pronunciations again, 
only he can foretell who knows how to predict the 
whims and vagaries of fashion. 

The question is often asked, Which of these three pro- 
nunciations is the " correct " one, p&p, or p&p, or pdj> ? 
Since the very broad pronunciation of a is rarely heard 
now or advocated, in any community, we may eliminate 
it and reduce the choice to one between p&p and pdj>. 
If the preceding discussion has been followed and 
understood, it will be apparent that it is not necessary 
to choose between the two pronunciations, that one is 
not correct to the exclusion of the other, but that both 
may be equally correct. A phonetic rule or law, it will 
be remembered, was defined as a generalization based on 



134 MODERN ENGLISH 

observation of the actual use of the language, apart from 
any notion of a lawgiver who establishes this or that as 
the law of language. Now if we observe the actual use 
or custom of the language, we shall see that some people 
or some communities say p&J? and others say pdj>, and 
further that the question of good English or bad English, 
that is, of correctness, does not enter here, unless we 
assume arbitrarily that one must be right and the other 
must be wrong. The question, however, is not one of 
right and wrong, but merely of two differing customs. 
In cases of this sort one's own individual preference and 
taste must decide. If some speakers prefer pgej> and 
others pa)?, the question of the one side giving up in 
favor of the other must depend entirely on the weight of 
authority which the one is willing to grant to the other. 
Each must decide for himself which law or custom he 
wishes to follow. 

Another vowel sound as to which the question of 
imitation, that is, of choice between differing customary 
sounds, arises, is the sound of short open o in words like 
log, dog, fog, stalk, bog. The usual tendency in America 
is to pronounce the vowel of these words as o, i. e., dog, 
fog, stok, bog. In some communities, however, and by 
some speakers, the words are pronounced with a sound 
exactly equivalent to a, as in what, watch, quality, follow- 
ing thus the pronunciation of words, like not (nat), rock 
(rak), hot (hat), cob (kab), stop (stap). Their phonetic 
form according to this pronunciation would therefore be 
dag, fag, stak, bag. On the other hand, by imitation of 
the pronunciation dog, fog, etc., this quality of the 
sound passes over into words like not, hot, rock, stop, 
which are then pronounced not, hot, rok, stop. 



ENGLISH SOUNDS 135 

Still another group of words may be cited in illustra- 
tion, words like roof, root, soot, hoof, hoop, and others. 
By some, perhaps most, speakers these words are pro- 
nounced with the vowel u, as in mood, tool, moon, goose, 
etc., their phonetic form then being ruf, rut, sut, huf, 
hup, etc. Other speakers pronounce these words with 
an open short u-sound, u, the sound of the vowel in put, 
foot, good, hood, stood, and many other words. Accord- 
ing to this pronunciation, their phonetic form would be 
ruf, rut, sut, huf, hup, etc. What the final outcome will 
be in the case of these three pairs of sounds, se and d, e 
and a, u and u, depends entirely upon the extent to 
which imitation takes place. Perhaps in time all words 
containing the a-vowel before a continuant consonant 
may come to be pronounced alike, either as as or d ; like- 
wise, all words containing the o- vowel may come to be 
pronounced as e, not, hot, got, rock, thus becoming net, 
hot, get, rek, or as a, dog, fog, log, thus becoming dag, 
fag, lag; and all words containing the oo-vowel may 
settle in the pronunciation u, put, foot, good, stood, be- 
coming general as put, fut, gud, stud (a pronunciation 
which is now a common one in Scotland), or on the pro- 
nunciation u, soot, hoof, root, mood, goose, thus becoming 
sut, huf, rut, mud, gus. Or the law of imitation may 
not be strong enough to bring about uniformity of 
usage in any of the three instances, in which case we 
shall continue as we are at present, some speakers using 
one sound and some speakers the other. This will 
be the most likely state of affairs so long as the different 
sounds are felt to be equally correct, that is, so long as 
they are all used by speakers who must be grouped with 
the class of the educated and refined. If, however, for 



136 MODERN ENGLISH 

some reason or other, the pronunciation dag, or the pro- 
nunciation ruf, should come to be regarded as less ele- 
gant than dog and ruf, just as at present there is a strong 
tendency to regard the pronunciation pdp as more ele- 
gant than the pronunciation p&p, the likelihood is that 
dag and ruf would be given up entirely in favor of d9g 
and ruf. Of the three groups of words, the one conse- 
quently concerning which it is safest to prophesy is the 
path-glass-as Jc-dance-grouip, because the law of imitation 
here is given a special direction by reason of the some- 
what special favor in which the one sound is held. 

A group of words which at present show a tendency 
towards sound change, but in which the law of imitation 
meets with some restraining opposition, is that consisting 
of words like tube, duke, due, Tuesday, new, and others. 
Many speakers pronounce these words with the sound of 
u, giving thus tub, duk, du, tusde, nu, like true, fruit, 
dew, rule, rude (after 1 and r the sound is always u, not 
iu), that is tru, f rut, du, rul, rud. This pronunciation is 
more generally heard in words of more than one syllable, 
as induce, produce, duty, etc., than it is in monosyl- 
lables. Yet both in monosyllables and in polysyllables 
it may be frequently observed, even, it may be pointed 
out, in the speech of persons who think they always 
pronounce the iu sound, as tiub, diuk, dm, tiusde, niii, 
prodius, etc. There is, among people who attach much 
importance to traditional and dogmatic rules, a strong feel- 
ing that the u pronunciation in tub, duk, etc., is wrong, 
or even vulgar. The only right pronunciation, they say, 
is tiub, diuk, etc. But is tub "incorrect"? If it is a 
widely occurring pronunciation, as our observation at- 
tests, then it must be one of the laws or customs of the 



ENGLISH SOUNDS 137 

language. But if it is a custom of the language, it has 
the same kind of authority as tiub, which itself becomes 
" correct " only by being a law or custom of speech. Nei- 
ther has any other authority than that which it acquires 
through the habits or customs of those who speak the 
language. The question of choice is again the question 
of which group of speakers, that is, which habit or custom, 
one wishes to follow. If one observes that the pronun- 
ciation tub is the habitual, customary, and unaffected 
speech of his linguistic community, one need have no 
hesitation in following it. If, on the other hand, accord- 
ing to his observation, tub is a pronunciation which is 
characteristic of the uneducated speaker and is heard 
only from such speakers, his choice is equally easy to 
make. The difficult}^ and the duty, in both instances, is 
to make sure that the observations upon which one's 
judgments are based are real and not prejudiced, and are 
sufficiently extensive to justify a generalization. Above 
all they should be derived not from the traditional state- 
ments of books, but from direct observation of actual 
practice. 

A few further stray instances of contemporary sound 
changes may be cited as illustrative of the kind of ques- 
tions which continually arise for decision. Among old- 
fashioned people one often hears the pronunciation of 
the word deaf as dif, the usual conventional pronunci- 
ation now being def. The pronunciation dif, however, 
is historically justifiable, the vowel having the same 
origin as the vowel in sheaf (Jif), deep (dip), and believe 
(biliv), and formerly it was in good current use among 
educated as well as uneducated speakers. Through 
some whim or fashion of the moment, which now has 



138 MODERN ENGLISH 

been forgotten, the pronunciation clef managed to creep 
in, was generally imitated, and thus has now become 
the general, and in that sense the correct, pronunciation. 
The pronunciation dif, however, still persists as a sur- 
vival in the speech of old-fashioned people, and, since 
they are always slower in arriving at imitative inno- 
vations than the educated, it persists also in the speech 
of the " ignorant " and " uneducated." 

There is at present some tendency to discriminate 
between the use of rise as a verb and as a noun ; in the 
former case the word is pronounced raiz, in the latter, 
rais, following the analogy of words like use as noun 
(ius) and as verb (iuz) ; device (divais), devize (divaiz). 
This change, however, is not at all general, and is chiefly 
in the hands of more or less conscious and affected users 
of the language. The same is true of the two pronun- 
ciations of either and neither as iSer, niSgr, and aiSgr, 
naiSor. In all communities in America the pronunci- 
ation, it59r, nitter, is by far the more general and usual, 
the second pronunciation being but rarely natural. The 
question of correctness and choice between the two is 
again to be decided entirely by one's preference. One 
who wishes his customs of speech to be normal and 
inconspicuous will generally choose to say iSor, niSor; 
one who prefers a slight mannerism of speech, who 
affects differences of speech that will distinguish him 
from others, is at liberty to choose aiSor, naiSar. The 
situation is somewhat similar in the instance of the two 
pronunciations of tomato as tometo and tomato. Both 
pronunciations are in good natural use in different sec- 
tions of the country, tho the pronunciation tometo is 
by far the more common. The second pronunciation, 



ENGLISH SOUNDS 139 

tomato, becomes an affectation only when it is assumed 
by persons whose normal pronunciation is tometo for 
the sake of distinguishing their speech from that of 
their environment. It is clear that it would be a much 
more reasonable and admirable endeavor for a speaker 
to strive to adapt his speech always to the use of his 
environment than to search out usages in speech that 
will set him off and distinguish him as different from 
his environment. 

12. Dialect. When, through the process of imita- 
tion, the speech of a certain community acquires char- 
acteristics peculiar to that community, which thus 
distinguish the speech of the community from that 
of the country at large, or from other sections of the 
country, we have a dialect. Dialect characteristics 
may affect both the popular and the cultivated speech, 
altho they are almost always much more strongly 
marked in the speech of the common daily intercourse 
of the people than they are in the speech of more 
careful and conscious speakers. Almost every com- 
munity has its local popular dialect, as, for example, 
the Hoosier dialect of Indiana, so skillfully used by 
James Whitcomb Riley in his poems ; the New England 
dialect, used by Lowell in the Biglow Papers; the 
Virginia dialect, made familiar to all of recent years 
through many a story of Southern life. We may speak 
also of dialect not from a geographical point of view, 
but from a racial and linguistic point of view. When 
persons whose native tongue is different from English 
settle in an English community, they are likely to develop 
a peculiar kind of English, which consists of a mixture 
of their own native tongue with English, resulting in 



140 MODERN ENGLISH 

a speech which is neither standard English nor a foreign 
language, but a sort of mixed popular dialect of English. 
Thus we have the negro dialect in this country, the 
Pennsylvania German dialect, which, however, contains 
such a large proportion of German words and is pro- 
nounced so much in the German fashion that it might 
better be called a dialect of German than of English; 
in certain regions which have been largely settled by 
Scandinavians, in Minnesota, Iowa, and other places, 
there has also grown up a mixed popular Scandinavian 
and English dialect. The Irish brogue, or dialect, is 
familiar to all; and in cities in which there is a large 
Hebrew element, a Hebrew dialect with marked indi- 
vidual characteristics has grown up. None of these 
dialects, however, either of the local or mixed kind, 
tend to spread beyond their own respective communities. 
When they are used in literature, it is for the purpose 
of giving local color to a situation, or, in character 
studies, for the purpose of making the speech of the 
character harmonize with his surroundings. The use of 
dialect for local color is found as far back as Chaucer, 
and is of course very common in later fiction, poetry, 
and comedy. The value of comic dialect characters on 
the stage has long been known, and they can be found 
as far back as Shakspere's Welshman, Scotchman, and 
Irishman in Henry V. The comic effect in all such in- 
stances arises from the violent contrast between what 
is regarded as the standard and correct speech and the 
speech of the dialect character, Welshman, Frenchman, 
village philosopher, or whoever it may be. 

The line marking the separation of the popular and 
local dialect from the standard speech of cultivated 



ENGLISH SOUNDS 141 

persons is not, however, a sharp one. The ascent from 
the popular to the standard speech is gradual, and since 
every speaker is necessarily a native of some local com- 
munity, his speech, especially his daily colloquial speech, 
is almost sure to bear some traces of its local origin. 
Just to what extent one is willing to allow these native 
and local characteristics of speech to remain must be 
left to individual choice. Perhaps no well-bred speaker 
would be willing to have his speech present such marked 
local characteristics that it immediately determined him 
as belonging to some special class or community. Such 
a manner of speech might fairly be called provincial. 
In general, the more formal one's speech is, the less it 
should be marked by localisms or provincialisms. The 
reason for this is that in formal discourse one usually 
is addressing a larger audience and one made up of 
more diverse elements than is the case in ordinary daily 
conversation, and consequently economy of attention 
demands that we should avoid such peculiarities of 
speech as might offend the taste of any one present. 
Every educated person owes it to himself, therefore, 
to be able to divest his speech of its local characteristics 
and to speak a language which is approximately stand- 
ard. What one shall regard as approximately standard 
must again depend, in the end, on individual observa- 
tion ; but on this question we shall have more to say 
later. 

13. Organic Sound Changes. In the preceding para- 
graphs we have been speaking of certain changes in the 
pronunciation of English sounds which become general, 
or tend to become so, through the process of imitation. 
Besides these changes we must consider a second group 



112 MODERN ENGLISH 

in which the changes are dependent less upon the law 
of imitation than upon purely natural and physical 
causes. These we may group under the general head of 
organic changes. The underlying explanation of all 
these changes of this second kind is to be found in the 
fact that our speech rests upon varying and entirely dif- 
ferent planes of utterance. Sometimes we speak very 
slowly and distinctly, at others we speak rapidly and 
with less attention to the form of each individual word ; 
certain words or groups of words we stress, while others 
are spoken with a less degree of energy. In general, the 
principle holds that the amount of energy we put forth 
in the operation of the organs of speech is in inverse ratio 
to the obviousness of the idea to be expressed. In 
speaking a conventional formula, as, for example, the 
greeting How do you do ? we enunciate the words very 
indistinctly. We do not say Hau du iu du ? but perhaps 
Hau do du? or Hau du? or even, the dialect writers tell 
us, Howdy ? It is not only in the speech of the ignorant 
and uneducated that such relaxed pronunciations find a 
place, but in the speech of everybody. Some little prac- 
tice in self-observation is often required, however, before 
a speaker realizes the actual phonetic character of his lan- 
guage. We are likely to have some theoretical notion of 
an ideal perfect pronunciation, — the conviction perhaps 
that we speak as we write, — so firmly fixed in our 
minds that we think we say what we think we ought to 
^ say, whereas what we actually say is something quite 
different. The question whether or not it is right to 
permit ourselves to use these relaxed pronunciations we 
shall consider later. In the meantime we should observe 
that the principle has always been in operation, and 



ENGLISH SOUNDS 143 

that it has deeply affected both the written and spoken 
form of our language. A few historical illustrations 
will make this point clear. 

In Milton's Paradise Lost, in a passage in which the 
poet is speaking of Dagon, the fish-god, there occurs the 
curious-looking word grunsel : 

In his own temple, on the grunsel-edge, 
Where he fell flat and shamed his worshipers. 1 

The meaning of this word would be hard to guess from 
Milton's form. But when we know that it is simply 
worn down from a compound ground + sill, the analogy of 
window-sill, door-sill gives us a ready clue to its meaning, 
even tho a compound ground-sill is no longer in cur- 
rent use. Milton's grunsel is only one of many words 
with a similar history. Our formula at parting, for ex- 
ample, which we now spell Good-by or Good-bye, and 
pronounce, with the stress on the second syllable, god-bai, 
or even without any vowel in the first syllable, g'd-bai, 
was originally the whole phrase God be with you. This, 
however, was entirely too long for a conventional for- 
mula, and, its literal sense being lost, it gradually came 
to be pronounced in an obscured and indistinct way. 
From the very start it became God be wi' ye. This 
further contracted into God bwye, a form which appears 
in the dialog of the comedies of the eighteenth cen- 
tury. Having gone so far, the original meaning of the 
phrase became altogether lost; the first syllable was 
mistaken for our word good and the second for our word 
by, and we reach thus our modern form good-by. Many 
words of the language have become obscured in form 

1 Book I, 11. 460-461. 



144 MODERN ENGLISH 

in the same way. Our Modern English word lord is de- 
rived from the Old English compound hlaf-weard, the 
first element of which is English loaf (of bread), the 
second ward (i. e., guardian), the whole word meaning 
originally the guardian of the loaf, or supplies in gen- 
eral. This word was, of course, originally a descriptive 
epithet for protector or leader of the people ; in time, 
however, the elements of the word ceased to be appre- 
ciated separately, and since the word stood for a single 
idea, which was not analyzed into the two notions of 
bread and guardian, it came to be pronounced as a sim- 
ple word. From hlaf-weard it became hlaford, then, 
with the loss of the h, which was general in all words 
in the initial position followed by another consonant, 
lauerd, and, finally, lord. By a similar process, Modern 
English woman has been derived from Old English wif- 
man, the second element being the generic name for 
human beings, and the first element wif-, the indication 
of sex. The word having become fixed in the language 
consciousness of the people as the conventional symbol 
for the idea woman, it was no longer felt to be necessary 
to analyze it into its descriptive parts, and it thus con- 
tracted into the form woman. A like change has made 
Modern English stirrup out of Old English stig-rap, 
which literally meant mounting-rope, from stig-, mean- 
ing " to mount " (cf. German steigen, and Modern Eng- 
lish stile, from Old English stig-ol), and rap, English 
rope. Modern English nostril is derived from the Old 
English compound nos-, " nose " + ftyril, " hole," the orig- 
inal compound meaning thus " nose-hole." The word 
window is derived from the two elements wind, and eage, 
" eye," the whole meaning " wind-eye," " the eye or hole 



ENGLISH SOUNDS 145 

by which the wind enters the house." The word punish 
appears also in the obscured form punch, the relation in 
meaning being obvious. 

Many further illustrations might be cited of what 
were originally careless, or better, relaxed, pronuncia- 
tions, making their way into the written as well as 
spoken language. For the present, however, it will 
suffice to point out a few instances in which these re- 
laxed pronunciations have made their way into recog- 
nized use in the spoken language, but have not yet 
succeeded in changing the written language to accord 
with the pronunciation. Thus we write the compound 
of sheep + herd, shepherd, but we pronounce it shepurd 
(Jepord). The nautical terms leeward and boatswain are 
pronounced luard (luard) and bdsen (boson). The ad- 
verb and preposition compound towards is pronounced 
tords (tordz), altho other compounds with -wards, as, 
for example, forwards and backwards, are pronounced 
approximately as they are spelled, except in the popular 
speech, where they also have become obscured, as towards 
has in the correct or standard speech, being pronounced 
there forards and backards (forordz, baekordz). Other 
illustrations from correct speech are wrist-band, pro- 
nounced rizbond, cupboard, pronounced kubard, fore- 
head, pronounced forad. A similar development has 
taken place in many place names and family names. 
Thus the name Salisbury is phonetically Solsbery (solz- 
beri) ; the name of one of the colleges of the University 
of Oxford is Magdalen, which is pronounced Maudlin, 
and which is etymologically precisely the same word as 
the English adjective maudlin. The name Gloucester, 
originally from Old English Gleawan-ceaster, is pho- 



146 MODERN ENGLISH 

netically Gloster ; Leicester is pronounced Lester ; and 
Cirencester, a town in southern England, is pronounced 
Sister. The discrepancy between the spelling and the 
pronunciation is much more marked in place names in 
England than it is in any other English-speaking coun- 
try ; it is so great, indeed, that it offers fair justification 
for the old story of the traveler, who on his return from 
a visit to England insisted that the English name 
Cholmondeley (pronounced Chumly) was spelled Mar- 
joribanks (pronounced Marchbanks). 

In all obscured words of the kind that we have been 
discussing, the same principle is involved. The words 
were originally spoken distinctly and in full. As time 
went on, however, and the words came to be very fa- 
miliar to all persons, it was felt to be unnecessary to give 
them their full value. They were intelligible in an ab- 
breviated and " telescoped " form, and following the nat- 
ural law of economy, they came to be used only in this 
abbreviated form. If we turn now to our contemporary 
speech we shall find that the same principle holds good. 
When we speak rapidly or speak even in an ordinary con- 
versational and colloquial tone, we have an entirely dif- 
ferent kind of utterance from that which we have when 
we speak carefully and formally, as when we speak to a 
person who understands English imperfectly. In the 
latter cases, each word is given a sharp and clear enuncia- 
tion and bears a separate stress. In the former cases, the 
words are run together more ; only one or two important 
words in a group are stressed, the rest being pronounced 
more or less indistinctly and vaguely. But when a word 
which in other instances ordinarily has no stress, for some 
reason, usually that of emphasis or antithesis, is given 



ENGLISH SOUNDS 147 

a stress, then it becomes clear and distinct and usually 
has a different phonetic form from that which it has when 
in unstressed position. Thus the sentence i" saw your 
sister yesterday, would normally be pronounced 9 so 
yar sistor yestgrde ; but the sentence I did rit see your 
sister but he saw mine, in which we have two pairs of 
antithetic, and consequently emphatic, words, Zand he, 
and your and mine, would be pronounced ai didnt si yur 
sis tor but hi so main. This difference in the phonetic 
form of words is sometimes recorded in the spelling, 
the preposition of, for example, usually pronounced uv, 
or simple 9, as in the phrase time of day, taim 9 de (cf. 
four o^ clock, from four of clock), being the unstressed 
form of which the adverb off is the stressed. Likewise 
the preposition to, pronounced t9, as in Tm going to town, 
aim goirj t9 taun, is the unstressed form corresponding 
to the adverbial stressed form too (tu). To illustrate 
this relaxed or natural form of speech a few connected 
sentences may be quoted, first in the conventional spell- 
ing, then in the actual phonetic form of the author's col- 
loquial speech. The sentences are as follows : " What 's 
the French for ' I don't understand ' ? I want to let this 
Frenchman know I can't understand what he 's saying. 
It's rather odd, I can talk French myself, but I can't 
understand it when it 's spoken. You should tell them 
not to speak so fast. I don't believe they can speak 
slow ; they are too excitable." In ordinary conversa- 
tional tone, the phonetic form of these sentences would 
be as follows : hwats So frene fgr " 9 dont undgrstsend " ? 
9 want 9 let Sis frenemgn no 9 ksent undgrstsend hwat iz 
seirj. its rseftgr ad, 9 k9n tok frene mgself, but 9 kasnt 
undgrstaend it hwen its spokgn. hi Jud tel Sgm nat t9 



148 MODERN ENGLISH 

spik so fsest. o dont biliv Se ksen spik slo ; S§ or tu 
iksaitobol. 1 

Perhaps not all speakers would use exactly the forms 
which have been put down in this phonetic transcription 
as representing, as nearly as possible, the use of the 
present writer. We must allow for variations among 
individuals, some persons not only following different 
customs, but also by nature speaking more slowly and 
distinctly than others. Thus the phrase, / can talk 
French myself might, in the pronunciation of some 
speakers, take a fuller form of the pronouns than those 
given above, being pronounced ai kon tok frene maiself . 
But the more obscure forms of the pronoun will cer- 
tainly be heard in the pronunciation of the majority of 
speakers. Another point should be noticed which our 
phonetic transcription does not take into account, and 
that is the matter of binding, or liaison, to borrow a 
term from French. Our custom of separating the 
words of connected discourse by spacing is purely con- 
ventional. It has grown up largely in modern times 
since the invention of printing. The manuscripts of 
the earlier periods, in Old English, for example, do not 
usually separate the individual words, but run them 
together in a straight ahead, running or cursive, style 
of writing. This method of writing, tho it would seem 
strange and inconvenient to us now, is indeed more in 
accord with our actual manner of speaking than our 
present printed and written use. For in speaking we 
do not normally pronounce individual words, but rather 
phrases or breath-groups, the pauses coming where they 
are demanded by the logical sense and not before and 

1 Adapted from Report of a Joint Committee, etc., p. 42. 



ENGLISH SOUNDS 149 

after each word. A phonetic transcription of the first two 
sentences of the above passage, taking account of this 
liaison, or binding of words into breath-groups, would, 
therefore, be as follows : hwatsSafrene faradontundar- 
staend? awantalet Sisfrenemanno akoentundarstaend 
hwatizsein. 

Perhaps the most interesting and important practical 
question which arises from the observation of these facts 
is, What shall be our attitude towards these colloquial 
or relaxed pronunciations ? Shall we try to get rid of 
them as careless, lazy, and inelegant ? Is there an ideal 
form of the language towards which we should strive 
and in which such pronunciations shall find no place ? 
One not infrequently meets with speakers who are pos- 
sessed of this conviction. Such theorists tell us that 
the article the should always be pronounced Si; the 
preposition of should be av or ov ; the verb can always 
keen, never kan, and so with all other words. They 
tell us that eveiy word should be separated sharply 
from its neighbors, that there shall be no liaison of word 
with word. They would have us pronounce the phrase 
a good deal as e gud dil, instead of 9 giidil; at all as 
set el, instead of atel. If the word suggest has two g's 
in the spelling, they would have us pronounce two, 
sugjest, instead of the normal and natural sajest ; or in 
such words as nation and educate, they would have us 
pronounce the words as netyen and ediuket, instead of 
nejan and ejiukSt. Needless to say, this " prunes and 
prisms " sort of pronunciation is both absurd and impos- 
sible. The attempt to carry it out would result in what 
we should rightly say was a language affected, unnatu- 
ral, and un-English. The fact is that such theorists 



150 MODERN ENGLISH 

have an entirely false conception of the nature of lan- 
guage, of the authority of the printed or written word, 
and of the source of what shall be regarded as standard 
and correct. They forget that the written and printed 
form of language comes after the spoken form, that it is 
merely a mechanical invention devised to recall and 
suggest the real and living language, which is the 
spoken language. They forget also that the mechanical 
device of printing and writing can only imperfectly and 
inadequately represent the sounds of speech, and that 
speech, to use the figure again which we have already 
used, like the waves of the ocean, is constantly chang- 
ing and assuming a multitude of new forms, whereas 
printing and writing tend to become more and more 
fixed, conventional, and unchanging. To make speech 
conform to the printed and written forms of language 
is very much as tho one should try to make the trees 
of a forest grow in conformity to an artist's picture of 
them. Both speech and trees have a life of their own 
which is free and independent of man's attempts to 
reduce them to a descriptive formula. 

The standards of correct speech must be found, there- 
fore, not in the printed or written form of language, 
but in the normal, natural conversation of daily life. 
It might seem that, having elevated the natural speech 
to this place of dignity, we have justified as right 
and correct all pronunciations of the colloquial and 
uncultivated speech whicli have followed the laws of 
natural development, and that if we may say terdz 
for towards, we may just as correctly say fergrdz for 
forwards and bsekordz for backwards. It is true that 
the vulgar pronunciation of forwards and backwards, 



ENGLISH SOUNDS 151 

and a host of other words, has followed exactly the 
same principles that have resulted in the standard 
pronunciation of towards and words of like kind ; 
but it is not true that we are at equal liberty to 
choose either in our pronunciation. For the law of 
imitation now enters to determine what shall be chosen 
and what shall be discarded. To repeat the statement 
of a preceding paragraph, one that cannot be too clearly 
held in mind, phonetic laws, as well as all other laws of 
language, become laws because they sum up or general- 
ize the custom or usage with respect to a body of similar 
phenomena. They are not laws because they express 
the mandate of some person or authority empowered to 
declare what shall be done, but they are laws or rules 
because they state what actually is done. There is no 
individual or autocratic power in language, but all work 
together voluntarily in groups. The popular or uncul- 
tivated speech has its laws or rules just as truly as has 
the standard or correct speech. Consciously or uncon- 
sciously every speaker follows the customs or rules of 
his own special group ; for him these are the laws of his 
language. It has already been sufficiently demonstrated 
that these laws or rules are not fixed once and for all, 
but are constantly adapting themselves to each other 
and changing. Now, what a speaker of to-day is chiefly 
concerned to know is what the laws or rules of his own 
present day speech, of his own group, shall be. To 
determine this there is only one means, and that is 
observation. He must turn and examine the speech, 
the living speech, of those persons with whom he is 
thrown in contact, with such added help as he may get 
from books a T id dictionaries in extending the field of his 



152 MODERN ENGLISH 

observation. In case of a doubtful pronunciation, he 
must determine what group of speakers he will unite 
himself with, — that is, the customs of what speakers he 
will imitate or follow. He will observe that at present 
the law of the popular speech is to pronounce forwards 
as forardz, and, extending his observation, he will per- 
ceive that it is not the law of cultivated speech so to 
pronounce the word. The choice of the group with 
which he will unite himself then lies in his own hands, 
and, other things being equal, will usually be in favor 
of the cultivated speech. The pronunciation of the 
cultivated speech is for him the correct use because he 
chooses it ; it is the law of his language. 

It is obvious from what has been said that no pronun- 
ciation is absolutely and inherently right and another 
wrong. Although the standard towards (tordz) and the 
popular forwards (ferardz) follow the same natural law 
and linguistically are on the same level, in the one case 
the result has been accepted by the group of speakers to 
which the cultivated and educated person wishes to be- 
long, in the other it has not. In so far, therefore, the 
one is correct and the other is incorrect ; it needs, how- 
ever, only the acceptance of the popular form into gen- 
eral use to make it as correct as the other. Historically 
it has, of course, often happened that there has been a 
shifting back and forth of popular and standard forms. 
Thus, the word sound appears without the final d in 

Chaucer : 

Soun is noght but air y- broken. 1 

This is the correct form, historically, since the word is 
derived from Latin sonum, the d being gratuitously 

1 House of Fame, 1. 765. 



ENGLISH SOUNDS 153 

added in later times. Thus, the Elizabethan poet and 
translator Stanyhurst, commenting on the length of cer- 
tain syllables in English meter, says : " Yeet sowning 
in English must bee long, and much more yf yt were 
sounding, as thee ignorant generaly, but falslye dooe 
wryte." 1 Yet the same writer drops a final d in the 
word rind from Old English rinde, spelling it ryne : 
" Not onlye by gnibling vpon thee outward ryne of a 
supposed historic" 2 As it happens the forms of these 
words which later custom has settled upon are sound 
and rind, but they might just as well have been soun 
and rine. In further illustration of the shifting of the 
nd sound, the word lawn may be cited. In Middle Eng- 
lish, for example in Chaucer, this word is always launde, 
with a final d. Later English has dropped the d, as 
Stanyhurst wanted to do with rind. 

It is obvious, then, that the burden of responsibility 
in making a choice between two divergent pronuncia- 
tions rests on the individual. Every person has not only 
the liberty of choice, but the necessity of choice. When 
a question of pronunciation comes up, each must decide 
for himself the form he will choose to use. If he at- 
tempts to put off the responsibility on another, say on a 
dictionary or the opinion of some one whose advice is 
sought, he is merely removing the appearance of respon- 
sibility, for in these instances he must decide for himself 
the value of the sources of information which he seeks 
and which he is willing to imitate or follow blindly. 
Plainly, also, if the responsibility rests with the indi- 

1 In Gregory Smith, Elizabethan Critical Essays, I, 142. 

2 Ibid., p. 136. His spelling gnibling he apparently derives by analogy 
to gnaw. 



154 MODERN ENGLISH 

vidual, the penalty also falls upon him. If the illiterate 
person pronounces forwards as ferordz and knows no 
better, because the field of his observation, his experi- 
ence, has not made him acquainted with a different 
pronunciation, he must nevertheless bear the odium of 
being classed with the uneducated when he comes into 
contact with the educated. He pays the penalty of his 
ignorance, and so does every one else who uses forms of 
language which he would not use if his sensitiveness 
to, and observation of, language had been keener and 
broader. Each must decide for himself whom or what 
group of persons he will regard as cultivated and edu- 
cated, — that is, the laws and customs of what group he 
wishes to follow. Each must decide for himself, also, 
what innovations he can risk. If he choose unwisely, 
if he follow a false standard of refinement and cultiva- 
tion, he must bear the consequences until experience 
and observation shall so far widen his horizon as to 
enable him to follow the law of the group of which he 
really wishes to consider himself a part. 

14. The Standard of Pronunciation. The question 
of a standard pronunciation has been to a large extent 
answered in the discussion of the preceding paragraphs. 
By the term standard of pronunciation, one usually 
means a fixed norm, an established and accepted form of 
the language, which shall serve as the model upon which 
all speakers shall fashion their speech. This standard is 
elevated to the position of the " correct " speech, all devi- 
ations from it being regarded as incorrect. A grave 
difficulty, however, confronts the student, and this is 
the difficulty of determining whether there actually is a 
standard of English pronunciation which shall serve as 



ENGLISH SOUNDS 155 

the pattern and model for all English-speaking people, 
and if so, where it is to be found. In the first place, we 
may safely say that there is no ideal and perfect inher- 
ent form of the language, towards which all speakers 
should strive as towards an ultimate goal. There is no 
objective system of language outside of the minds and 
experiences of the people who use and speak the lan- 
guage. In seeking for a standard of pronunciation, con- 
sequently, men must look to themselves and their own 
use, not to some extra-human and ideal system towards 
which they shall dutifully strive. Any standard which 
is chosen must be made up from the laws of the actual 
spoken use of some group of speakers, because it is only 
in actual spoken use that language really exists. 

In the attempt to fix upon some body of spoken use 
as the standard language, the question may be ap- 
proached from two points of view, first, the geographical, 
and, second, the social or educational point of view. In 
attempting to establish a geographical standard of spoken 
use, choice is made of the speech of some one region or 
community, which is to be regarded then as the model 
for all other communities. In other words, one dialect 
is chosen as the standard to which all other dialects 
shall conform. In some countries this principle is rec- 
ognized in actual practice. The standard French dialect 
is the dialect of Paris, the standard Italian dialect is 
the dialect of Florence, or rather of Tuscany, the prov- 
ince in which Florence is situated ; and the standard 
Spanish dialect is the Castilian, the dialect of Madrid. 
These dialects are standard for their respective coun- 
tries, however, because the people of these various coun- 
tries have voluntarily accepted them as their standard, 



156 MODERN ENGLISH 

not because Parisian French or Tuscan Italian or Castil- 
ian Spanish have any inherent right to the exclusion of 
other dialects. It simply so happens that the people of 
these various countries, in the development of their civ- 
ilization, have come to look upon certain communities as 
the center of their national life and culture. Turning 
to the English-speaking countries, however, we find an 
entirely different state of affairs. No one community is 
now accepted as affording the model of speech to which 
all others must conform. Theoretically we might say 
that London, as the capital of the native home of the 
English language, ought to be regarded as the home of 
the standard language. As an actual fact, however, the 
speech of London is not so regarded, not even by the Brit- 
ish themselves. The English-speaking people through- 
out the world do not look upon London as affording 
the ideal speech which it is their duty to imitate and 
follow. Indeed, so different is the manner of speech 
of Englishmen from that of Americans that the former 
is often used in America as the mark of a comedy 
character on the stage — just as in England " the Ameri- 
can accent" is similarly used as a laughter-provoking 
device. Of course the stage Englishman and American 
are usually exaggerations, but the normal speech of the 
two countries is sufficiently divergent to be easily per- 
ceived, and too divergent to allow one to stand as a 
model for the other. " No American speaker or writer 
ever thinks it needful to adopt the British form of his 
own language, any more than a British speaker or writer 
thinks it needful to adopt the American form." 1 

Practically it would be impossible for British English 

1 Freeman, Some Impressions of the United States, p. 56. 



ENGLISH SOUNDS 157 

to serve as the model for American English, or Ameri- 
can English for British English. The two peoples, de- 
spite their many similarities and relationships, do not 
come into sufficiently intimate and frequent personal 
contact to enable them to know directly the manner of 
speech of each other. And it is of course only by direct 
personal contact that the speech of one community can 
impose itself upon that of another. 

Coming nearer home, neither do we find in our own 
country any city, Washington, for example, or any re- 
gion, which can lay claim to the place of distinction 
which the French accord to Paris and the Italians to 
Florence. The speech of Chicago does not feel itself 
under any compulsion to adapt itself to that of Boston, 
or that of Boston to that of Chicago. The speech of 
New York cannot impose itself upon that of New Or- 
leans, or that of San Francisco upon that of St. Louis. 
In short, we do not acknowledge that the speech of any 
one community has compelling power over that of any 
other. We have no acknowledged seat or center of 
national life and culture, and consequently we do not 
elevate to the position of a standard the speech of any 
city or state. 

Failing a local geographical standard, the next position 
would be that the standard speech is not the speech of 
any one community but the speech of the country as a 
whole. In answer to this the obvious query comes, Is 
there a common general speech of the country as a 
whole ? Does the average Bostonian speak like the 
average Chicagoan ? Most certainly not. He does not, 
not only because he does not want to, but because he 
could not if he would. The citizen of one community 



158 MODERN ENGLISH 

does not know how the citizens of another speak, because 
it is only by a long-continued residence in a strange 
community that a visitor can acquire a wide and exact 
knowledge of its manner of speech. All we can say is 
that some comparatively few widely traveled and cos- 
mopolitan speakers have acquired a manner of speech 
which is general enough not to betray the immediate 
locality of its origin, tho it must always have character- 
istics individual enough to class it broadly as Eastern 
or Western or Southern. With the vast majority of 
speakers the local characteristics are even more marked. 
The local characteristics of one community may extend 
over a wider area than those of another, the dialect char- 
acteristics of Virginia, for example, covering a less extent 
of territory than those of the Middle West ; but each, 
nevertheless, has its local metes and bounds, and for its 
section they are distinctive. We have already remarked 
that the speech of large cities especially tends to become 
markedly local and dialectal. Thus to one observant of 
such matters, the speech of Boston or Philadelphia is 
soon perceived to be noticeably different from that of 
their near neighbor, New York. Theoretically one might 
say that it is the duty of the speakers of each community 
to strive for a common and universal speech ; that, if 
the Bostonian will not speak like the Chicagoan or the 
Chicagoan like the Bostonian, then they should come 
together on some middle ground. Each region thus 
yielding some of its individual characteristics, we should 
arrive at a compromise among the various local speeches 
which would be a universal, cosmopolitan speech. The 
obvious obstacle in the way of this theory is that the 
laws of language are not based on theory, but arise from 



ENGLISH SOUNDS 159 

actual use. When the Bostonian and Chicagoan are 
thrown so intimately together, when intercourse between 
them is so frequent and long-continued that they become 
practically one in their habits and customs, then, and not 
till then, will they speak a single speech. Then they 
will develop a new dialect comprehensive enough in its 
limits to include both Chicago and Boston. A standard 
speech cannot be imposed dogmatically ; it cannot even be 
chosen voluntarily. It must grow, as all other customs 
grow in language, gradually and naturally. And until 
some such change takes place in the country as a whole, 
until from a group of more or less clearly defined com- 
munities, it becomes one great homogeneous community, 
so long we shall have local differences of speech and 
so long will the theory of a universal standard speech 
remain a vain and empty dream. 

Besides the local or geographical aspect of the question, 
the matter of the standard speech may be approached 
from a second point of view, the social or educa- 
tional. We have already pointed out that the speech 
of different social groups or classes differs widely. The 
popular, or vulgar, speech is different from that of the 
educated person, and the colloquial and every-day speech 
of the latter is different from his careful and formal 
speech. The question of choice between the popular 
and illiterate speech and the speech of educated and 
cultivated people presents little difficulty. Perhaps 
every one will agree without question that the speech 
of the uninformed and uninstructed has no claim to be 
regarded as the standard or correct speech, and that, on 
the contrary, the speech of the cultivated portion of 
society has every claim to be so regarded. The diffi- 



160 MODERN ENGLISH 

culty comes not in making the choice, but in preparing 
the way for the choice, in determining just who are the 
cultivated and educated and refined speakers whom we 
are willing to regard as affording the models or laws of 
the correct or standard speech. The difficulty of defin- 
ing education, culture, and refinement is one that has 
often been felt. They are qualities that may be readily 
perceived when they are exemplified in individuals, but 
often defy description and analysis. Perhaps the main 
source of the difficulty lies in the fact that the qualities 
mentioned are largely matters of opinion, that no per- 
son is absolutely educated or refined or cultured. One 
whom I might regard as an educated and refined person, 
another, with higher or at least different standards, might 
regard as uneducated, as crude and vulgar. Everything 
depends upon the point of view, the predilections, the 
prejudices, the customary habits and ways of thinking of 
the person who acts as judge and critic. The bearing of 
this upon the question of the standard of correct speech 
is direct. What shall I regard as educated and refined ? 
Where shall I place the line between the lower and the 
higher, that which is to be approved and imitated and 
that which is to be condemned and rejected ? To these 
questions there is no general answer. Each person must 
put the questions to himself and must answer them 
for himself. He must judge and choose according to 
his own light and according to his own opportunities 
of experience and observation. It is the end of edu- 
cation to enable one to make right decisions in such 
matters, and the whole process of education cannot be 
stated in a word. It is obviously necessary to make 
these decisions not only with respect to a few great 



Enter Nerrijft. 

D/;. Came you from Padua from Heltar'toi 

Ner. From both. 
J My Lord 'Bellario greets your Grace. 

'Baf. Why dolt thou whet thy knife fo earneftly ? 

lew. To cut the forfeiture from hat bankrout there. 

(Jra. Not on thy foale : but on thy foulc harfli lew 
Thou rr.ak'ft thy knife keene ; but no mettall can. 
No, not the hangmans Axe bearc halfe the keennefle 
Oi thy finrpe enuy. Can no prayers pierce thec? 

Ira. No, none that thou haft wit enough to make. 

<7>vr. O be thou damn'd, mcxecrablc doggc, 
And for thy life let iuftice be accu»'d: 
Thou a!rr.ott.mak'ft me wauer in my faith \ 
Tohoidopinion with PythtvorM, 
That foules of Animals infufc themfclues 
ituothetrunkesofmen. Thycurrifhfpiric 
Gouern'd a Wolfe, who hang*d for humane (laughter, 
Eucn from tha gallowes did his fell foule fleet ; 
Ami whil'ft thou laycft in thy vnhallowed dam, 
Infus'd it felfc in thee : For thy deftres 
Are Woluifli, bloody, (teru'd,and rauenous:* 

lew. Till thou canftra lie the feale from orVmy bond 
Thou but offend ft thy Lungs to fpcake (b loud: • 
Repaire thy wit good youth, or it will fait 
Tocndleflc ruine. I ftand hcerefor I aw. 

D* m This Letter from r Bell*rto doth commend 
A yong and Learned Doclor in aur Court ; 
Where is he > 

A&r. Hcattendethheerehardby 
To know your anfwer,whctheryou'l admit hi.n. 

D*. With all my heart. Some three or four of you 
Go giuc him curteous conduct to this place, 
Maanc time the Court {hall \\t%\t g BtUrmt Letters 

"WOur CracefhaUvnderfaHd^ th*t At the rceeiteofyoftr 

The First Folio of Shakspere. 
Merchant of Venice, Act IV, Sc. i, 11. 119-152. 
(For description, see Appendix.) 



162 MODERN ENGLISH 

figures or authorities, not only with respect to public 
speakers, for example, whom one hears only at rare 
intervals, but also with respect to one's daily associ- 
ates and the hourly customs and habits of familiar life. 
The decisions of the latter kind are naturally the more 
important ones, but at the same time the ones concern- 
ing which it is least possible to give a general guiding 
rule. Here again individual judgment is the only way 
we have of deciding who the good speakers are among 
those whom we meet. We are naturally inclined to 
regard our own judgment in such matters as universal 
and final, but this is an assumption that is likely to 
be questioned as soon as we try to impose our stand- 
ards and decisions upon others. 

The authority of dictionaries and other printed works 
rests upon somewhat the same basis as that of persons. 
Dictionaries and other guide-books are the work of 
finite human beings, and tho, in general, the authors 
of them are men of exceptional weight and authority 
because of their greater information and extent of 
observation, they are nevertheless fallible and limited 
in their experience. Consequently, when the statement 
of a dictionary differs from one's own observation, the 
sensible thing to do, after one has made sure that the ob- 
servation is true, is to disregard the dictionary altogether 
and to follow the example of actual use. Moreover, 
from the nature of the case, dictionaries are bound to 
become antiquated. Before one gives much weight to the 
decision of a dictionary, one should make sure that the 
dictionary is a record of contemporary use. Early 
editions of Webster's dictionary, 1 for example, record the 

1 The later editions are known as Webster's International Dictionary. 



ENGLISH SOUNDS 163 

pronunciation dif for deaf, as well as many other uses 
that are no longer current or have become quite dialectal. 
But even the more contemporary dictionaries are not 
always a certain guide. In the great proportion of in- 
stances they, of course, are, since the question of double 
use arises only infrequently. One should exercise con- 
siderable caution, therefore, before one differs from the 
opinion of a reputable dictionary like the New English 
Dictionary, the Century, or the Standard, and all the 
more caution when these various dictionaries agree. 
Occasions are not wanting, however, in which reputable 
use is at variance with the united opinion of even the 
best dictionaries. Thus the word peremptory is stressed 
by both Standard and Century dictionaries only on the 
first syllable, whereas the pronunciation peremptory is 
certainly the more usual one, even among careful speak- 
ers. Both dictionaries stress octopus only on the second 
syllable, contrary to the usual custom of stressing it on 
the first, a pronunciation which is acknowledged as a 
secondary one by the New English Dictionary. For 
culinary the dictionaries record only the pronunciation 
kiu'linseri, altho the pronunciation kulinaeri is perhaps 
as frequently heard. The word vizor is recorded as 
vi'zar or vi'zer, although one hears as often, perhaps 
more often, the pronunciation vai'zer, or vai'zor. In 
some instances the dictionaries record two pronuncia- 
tions, leaving to the choice of each person the one he 
prefers to use. Thus, we have the forms aedvQrtai'zmont 
and sedver'tizmont ; skwolor and skwelar; ske'd3ul, 
ske'diul, and in England, Je'diul. Qther words in which 
the dictionaries as well as usage disagree are numerous. 
The International (Webster's) Dictionary records only 



164 MODERN ENGLISH 

the pronunciation o'asis, which is the preferred form in 
the Standard Dictionary ; but the Century records only 
oa'sis, and the New English Dictionary gives both oa'sis 
and o'asis. The pronunciation oa'sis is decidedly the more 
common one in America ; its use in England is also attes- 
ted by the scansion of the following line from Tennyson : 

My one oasis in the dust and drouth. 

A similar uncertainty obtains in the pronunciation of 
legend, which is sometimes le'jond and sometimes li'JQnd. 
One hears also two pronunciations for progress, progres 
and pro'gres ; and for drama, dramo and drema. There 
is also a divergence of use in certain more or less recent 
words, as, for example, vaudeville, pronounced vo'davil 
or vo'dovil; automobile, pronounced etomo'bil or eto- 
mobil' ; coupon, pronounced ku'pon or kiu'pen. 

Webster's International and the New English Diction- 
ary record only the pronunciations peton and metron 
for patron and matron. The Century and Standard give 
a second pronunciation, psetron and msetran. On the 
other hand, for patronage the International and the New 
English Dictionary give only the form pastronej, fol- 
lowed also by the Standard ; the Century gives as second 
pronunciation, petronej. For matronal the International 
gives first msetrengl, second metrengl ; the New English 
Dictionary gives only the second pronunciation ; and the 
Century and Standard give the second as a preferred 
pronunciation, and the International's first as a secondary 
pronunciation. Can anything more confusing be im- 
agined than the attempt to reason out a principle of 
choice from the statements of the dictionaries with 
respect to these four words? 



ENGLISH SOUNDS 165 

A pronunciation of the word hearth as hurp, riming 
thus with earth, birth, etc., is widely current in the 
United States, both in popular and in the more careful 
speech. The only dictionary, however, which recognizes 
this pronunciation is the Century, which gives it as a 
second pronunciation. The preferred pronunciation in 
the Century, and the only one recorded by the Interna- 
tional, the New English, and the Standard, is harp, an 
assonance to heart, part, etc. The pronunciation hurp is 
not only a legitimate one in present American usage, it 
is also supported by history. It is indeed a survival 
from a pronunciation which was once general and 
standard in English, as is illustrated by the rime in the 
following lines from Milton's II Penseroso : 

Far from all resort of mirth 
Save tlie cricket on the hearth. 

This pronunciation, according to the New English Dic- 
tionary, still persists in Scottish and in the northern dia- 
lects of England. And, as we have pointed out, it also 
persists in good use in American speech, which in many 
instances has been strongly conservative of earlier usages. 
An instructive comparison may be made between this 
pronunciation of hearth as hurp, and the pronunciation of 
clerk. This latter word is always pronounced klurk in 
American speech, with the same quality of vowel as hurp. 
In England, however, the customary pronunciation is 
klark (with the r, however, slightly pronounced or alto- 
gether omitted), a pronunciation which has affected the 
spelling of the word when it appears as the proper name 
Clark, Clarke. The pronunciations hurp, klurk are the 
more original pronunciations, of which the forms harp, 
klark are a later development. This later form is illus- 



166 MODERN ENGLISH 

trated in other words from earlier -er in which the spell- 
ing has been changed to accord with the pronunciation, 
such as bark, dark, hark, etc. In the word sergeant, and 
in the words hearth and clerk as pronounced harj>, klark, 
the earlier spelling has remained in spite of the change 
in pronunciation. The word person has assumed two 
orthographic forms, the one cited being the more original 
form, from which was developed, in a specialized sense, 
the word parson. What has happened, consequently, in 
American speech, with respect to the words clerk and 
hearth, is that in clerk the earlier form has persisted 
as the standard use, whereas in the case of hearth, 
the earlier pronunciation persists pretty generally in 
the popular speech and to some extent in the culti- 
vated speech, altho in the latter place it tends to be 
crowded out by the later pronunciation, exemplified 
in such forms as heart, dark, hark, etc., becoming thus 
harp. 

One or two further miscellaneous examples of uncer- 
tain use may be given. The pronunciation pa'resis is 
the only one recognized by the International, Century, 
Standard, and the New English Dictionaries. But in 
actual speech, to some extent in the medical profession 
and almost always outside it, the pronunciation heard is 
pare 1 sis. The New English Dictionary authorizes only 
rec'ondite; the International and Standard prefer re- 
condite, but give as second choice, recondite. On the 
other hand the Century gives recondite as first choice, 
and recondite as second. All the dictionaries record 
only inqui'ry (inkwai'ri), disregarding completely the 
frequently heard pronunciation with stress on the first 
syllable. 



ENGLISH SOUNDS 167 

15. Spelling Reform. The consideration of the ques- 
tion of spelling reform rightly finds a place in a discussion 
of English sounds, for the reason that English spelling 
is merely an outward and visible means of representing 
the sounds of the language. The language itself ex- 
isted in all its essentials long before it was reduced to a 
written or a printed form, just as to-day the illiterate 
person who knows nothing about reading or writing is 
nevertheless possessed of the power of language. Spell- 
ing or writing is, therefore, nothing more than an at- 
tempt to reduce to a fixed and permanent formula what 
was already pre-existent in the impermanent use of 
spoken speech. It has already been pointed out, that 
whatever the immediate descriptive or pictorial charac- 
ter of written language may have been in its origin, it 
has now completely lost its pictorial value and is merely 
a set of conventional and arbitrary signs, the signifi- 
cances of which have to be learned and held in mind by 
a pure act of memory. In this respect written language 
is on exactly the same level as spoken language. In 
the latter, as a result of many successive ages of custom 
and use, we have settled upon certain sounds and se- 
quences of sounds as conveying certain ideas. The 
value and meaning of these sounds and groups of 
sounds have to be learned anew by every individual 
who acquires command of the language. Parents, by a 
long period of discipline and instruction, teach their 
children how to make the sounds and what ideas the 
sounds stand for. No child has the command of lan- 
guage inherently and by nature, but only as he learns it 
by imitating the speech of others. In the same way, 
through a long process of development, we have come 



168 MODERN ENGLISH 

to settle upon certain written symbols and groups of 
symbols as standing for certain sounds and groups of 
sounds. Every child now learns to make this arbitrary 
connection between the symbol and the sound, just as 
before he had learned to make a connection between the 
various sounds and the respective ideas which they were 
used to designate. Now, having settled upon a conven- 
tional set of visible written symbols to stand for audible 
spoken sounds, the question of reform in our system of 
visible written symbols arises when an endeavor is made 
to make more perfect or consistent our system of sym- 
bols. Spelling reform, indeed, is only a name for this 
endeavor when it becomes conscious. More or less un- 
conscious spelling reform has been going on ever since 
the beginning of written language, because from the 
very beginning written language has been changing in 
order to adapt its system to the changes in the spoken 
language. When, for example, in the Middle English 
period, the initial consonant in such Old English words 
as hring, Meap-an, and hrof ceased to be pronounced, 
and the words consequently were spelled ring, leap, and 
roof, that was as much a spelling reform as any that can 
be advocated nowadays. It is safe to say that every 
change in spelling that has taken place in the history of 
the language has taken place because some one thought 
the change a necessary or advisable improvement in the 
system of spelling. The motive underlying the change 
may not always have been wise or well considered, but 
it is certain that changes have never taken place in a 
completely haphazard and causeless way. 

The question is sometimes asked, Why is it necessary 
for us to think about the matter of spelling at all ? 



ENGLISH SOUNDS 169 

Since our system of spelling is an arbitrary and conven- 
tional one, does it matter much what conventions we 
use ? Why should we set to work consciously to alter 
or improve that which, when all is said, is certainly 
capable of performing, and for many generations has 
performed, the service for which it is intended ? Or it 
is urged that if any changes are to be made, we should 
leave them to the next generation or the third or the 
fourth, or to whatever generation feels compelled to 
make them. To all these queries and objections the 
answer is, that we are under no necessity of considering 
the question of spelling reform. No matter how com- 
plicated or inconsistent or imperfect our system of 
written speech may be, if we wish to do so, we can 
make it serve. Englishmen have not lived and spoken 
and written all these generations without evolving a 
written and spoken language which is to some, or rather 
to a high degree, adequate to the purposes for which it 
was devised. The question, therefore, of the improve- 
ment of English spelling is not one of necessity ; it is 
one of desire and inclination. If the present English 
spelling affords a fairly serviceable medium of written 
expression, it does so because it has been an object of 
deepest thought and consideration to many generations 
of English-speaking peoples. Spelling is a human insti- 
tution, and like all human institutions, it has had its 
crude beginnings, it has grown as a result of the effort 
of individuals, and it has improved by rectifying its 
errors and by correcting its imperfections. That it has 
now reached a state of ultimate perfection, that it is in- 
capable of further improvement, the history of other 
human institutions forbids us to believe. We might as 



170 MODERN ENGLISH 

well refuse to think of aerial navigation, because we are 
already able to move upon the earth and the water by 
electricity and steam, as refuse to look to the future of 
our language because our fathers have handed down to 
us their form of the language. The endeavor of every 
one truly interested in the welfare of his speech will be 
to make that speech more perfect and effective. He 
will not rest content in a blind conservatism, but will 
be alert and quick to see the value of suggested im- 
provement. The matter of the improvement of English 
spelling is specially one for the present generation. 
Each period is confronted with its own particular prob- 
lems in language, and it is on the way in which each 
period solves its problems that the language of the 
future depends. For our period, one of the problems is 
certainly the question of spelling reform, and it is one 
deserving of careful consideration and of a fair and 
reasonable answer. Our danger of error is no greater, 
perhaps is less great, than it has been in any preceding 
period, and equable judgment and sound scholarship are 
as well able to care for the language of the future as 
they ever were in the past. 

Just in what respect the accepted spelling may be im- 
proved and simplified must be determined by a separate 
discussion of individual instances, and as in the case of 
the changes in sounds discussed in preceding paragraphs, 
the final acceptance of these changed or improved or 
reformed spellings must rest upon the desire, or, to use 
the term previously employed, the imitation, of the indi- 
viduals who use the written and printed form of the 
language. It should be remembered that the chief ob- 
stacle in the path of improved spelling is a result of 



ENGLISH SOUNDS 171 

exactly the same cause which has made change and im- 
provement desirable. Spelling was at first free to adapt 
itself to the spoken forms of words. The simple and 
natural rule of spelling was to write as you speak. 
Consistency in the spelling of an individual and gen- 
eral uniformity among all writers were not regarded as 
necessar} r , or even as virtues towards which one should 
strive. In Old English, for example, not only will the 
same word be spelled differently by different writers, 
but even the same writer does not always use the same 
spelling. This freedom in the treatment of spelling 
persists down through the time of Chaucer, even down 
through Shakspere and later. One need only turn to 
an early quarto or folio edition of one of Shakspere 's 
plays, an edition in which the spelling has not been nor- 
malized and modernized, to see that the rules of Eliza- 
bethan spelling were much less uniform and consistent 
than they are in Modern English. To find in our time 
an attitude towards spelling parallel to that of Shak- 
spere's, we must turn to the use of those whom we should 
now call the imperfectly educated, those who spell very 
much as they feel inclined. The reason why the spell- 
ing of Shakspere and of the contemporary imperfectly 
educated person is on the same plane, is that neither of 
these has acknowledged, or in fact is aware of, the ideal 
of a perfectly consistent and uniform system of spelling. 
This is an invention of comparatively modern times, and 
it is only in modern times that it has been made a re- 
quirement and a test of the conventionally educated 
person. 

The causes which have operated to bring about this 
change of attitude towards spelling are mainly the ex- 



172 MODERN ENGLISH 

tension of the reading public and the influence of the 
dictionaries and spelling-books. The influence of print- 
ing and of the rules of the printing-houses upon English 
spelling has been very great. In the first place, the 
printer with his professional sense of the importance of 
the mechanical side of his art, always strives for com- 
plete consistency and regularity. He makes his margins 
always the same width, his words are always spaced 
exactly so far apart, he uses the same kind of type 
always for the same purpose, and in countless ways he 
endeavors to make his work as mechanically uniform 
and regular as possible. Obviously, one of the first 
things to which he would direct attention would be the 
question of a uniform spelling; and so we find with 
the rise of the great printing-houses in England in the 
eighteenth century the origins of a rigidly uniform 
system of spelling. About the same time regularizing 
tendencies began to show themselves also in the mak- 
ing of dictionaries and spelling-books, the purpose of 
which was to choose from the various spellings and to 
record what was regarded as the one standard and cor- 
rect spelling of words. This standard of correct spelling 
was usually derived from contemporary printed books, 
and consequently the dictionaries gave nothing more than 
the statement of the spelling rules of the printing houses. 
Among the dictionaries, the most influential was Dr. 
Johnson's, the first edition of which appeared in 1755. 
This book purported to give the correct spelling of all 
words, and it and other later dictionaries after its model 
have had great influence in spreading the belief that 
words have only one permissible and correct spelling, 
and that the one recorded by themselves. 



ENGLISH SOUNDS 173 

The unconscious influence of the printed word has also 
been making for a fixed and conventional spelling. Men 
read so much nowadays, newspapers, books, magazines, 
and divers forms of printed literature, that the printed 
word has come to seem almost more real than the spoken 
word. The former certainly is more obvious, more tan- 
gible, one might say, and more permanent, and it leaves 
a more definite and lasting impression on the memory 
than the spoken word. The result of these influences, 
of that of the printing-houses, of the dictionaries and 
rule books for spelling, and of printed literature in gen- 
eral, has been to raise the printed word to a position of 
undeserved importance. It tends more and more to 
detach itself from the spoken word and to become an 
independent and conventional symbol for the former. 
Spelling thus becomes a thing apart, a system with its 
own rules and regulations that have no relation to any- 
thing else. We thus have spelling for spelling's sake, 
instead of the natural state of affairs, which is spelling 
for speaking's sake. 

Recognizing the danger of being tyrannized over by 
an unyielding system of conventional spelling, we have 
the relief in our own hands. We should remember that 
whatever authority the dictionary maker and the printer 
have, they have it because the voluntary assent of the 
people grants it to them. Neither dictionary maker nor 
printer is a lawgiver who has power to legislate finally 
as to what spellings shall be and what shall not be. 
They are individuals, as are all other users of the lan- 
guage, and they acquire their authority just as other 
individuals do, that is, by the willingness of others to 
follow and imitate them. Granting this, the way of 



174 MODERN ENGLISH 

the spelling simplifier or improver is clear. He may 
choose to follow the spelling of the dictionaries and the 
printers when he sees no good reason for deviating from 
it; but when he chooses to deviate from it, he has as 
great right, and if his judgment is as sound, as good 
authority for doing so, as the dictionary has for pre- 
venting him. 

The most radical scheme of spelling reform is that 
which is proposed by the advocates of a phonetic alpha- 
bet. They point out to us that spelling, or the visible 
form of language in general, is intended merely as a 
representation of spoken language, and that as such it 
should be used with systematic consistency and exact- 
ness. They show that, on the contrary, our present 
spelling in some instances uses letters which are not 
pronounced at all, as the final e in late, the ue of tongue, 
the I of walk; in others uses the same letter with 
different values, as the c in cent and call ; the a in hat, 
hate, hall ; and in still others uses different letters with 
the same value, as s and c in sent, scent, and cent ; a and 
-ey in hate and they ; e and ee in he and see. In short, 
they point out what is certainly true, that our present 
spelling, for one reason and another, has become a very 
imperfect and inconsistent means of representing our 
present sounds. As a corrective of all these evils, the 
phonetic reformers propose that an entirely new alpha- 
bet be invented, one in which each sound, has its own 
symbol and in which no symbol has more than one 
value, that this new alphabet replace the old traditional 
alphabet, and then that every word be written in this 
new set of symbols as it is pronounced. The advantage 
of such a reform, if it could be carried through, would 



ENGLISH SOUNDS 175 

be undeniably great. Our spelling would then be logi- 
cal and systematic. Foreigners learning English would 
be relieved of one of the chief difficulties which now 
lie in their way. Both practically and theoretically 
such a system of phonetic spelling would approach the 
ideal of the relation which should exist between the 
spoken and the written word. Unfortunately, however, 
there is not the remotest possible chance that any such 
radical reform could ever be put into operation. If our 
language were in the hands of some autocratic power 
who by an imperial edict was able to declare that this 
or that shall henceforth be the law of the language, 
there might be some hope for the phonetic reformer. 
But the English language is not in the hands of an 
individual, or even in the hands of a group of individ- 
uals. It is the most democratic of all the institutions 
of a democratic people. What the people do and what 
the people will is the law of the language. Now ex- 
perience has shown that the will of the people is in- 
alterably opposed to any such wholesale and violent 
overturning of their traditional language as the pho- 
netic reform supposes. Our present system of spelling 
has come to be as it is slowly and gradually. It has 
its roots deeply fixed in the past. It is the form in 
which an ancient and dignified literature is recorded, 
and on all sides it is worthy of the deep respect and 
veneration which we rightly pay to our heritage of 
national and social tradition. The attempt, therefore, 
to replace the accepted spelling by a system of entirely 
new manufacture is not only impossible, but it does 
violence to a sentiment of respect and a feeling for the 
language which has always existed and which should 



176 MODERN ENGLISH 

always be cherished. It is not by such revolutionary 
methods that the spelling of the future is to be made 
better than the spelling of to-day. Now, as ever in 
language, changes must take place slowly and gradually. 
They must come because they meet with the approval of 
the general body of the users of the language, not because 
they seem good to some maker of systems and theories. 

A compromise phonetic reform is that which would 
endeavor to get along with our present alphabet, but 
would so reconstruct the spelling of words that they 
would be spelled systematically in the phonetic way 
as far as is possible with the traditional alphabet. Thus 
the words doe and dough, being pronounced alike would 
be spelled alike, both perhaps do, by analogy to so. 
The same spelling could not of course answer for doe 
and dough and also for the verb do ; the latter would 
therefore have to be changed, say to doo, to conform to 
the spelling too, school, food, etc. If, however, oo were 
settled upon as having the value of the vowel in do, 
then the word rule would have to be spelled rool (like 
spool), through would be spelled throo, ivho would be- 
come whoo, fruit would become froot (like root), and so 
on through a countless number of similar changes. Now 
again, altho many of these changes would doubtless 
conduce to simplicity and regularity, the same objection 
holds against carrying out a systematic and compre- 
hensive scheme of spelling reform along these lines as 
against one based on the use of a phonetic alphabet, and 
that is, that the changes necessitated are too numerous, 
and the violence done to the natural conservative feel- 
ing for the language is too great. The work of reform 
must proceed more slowly. 



ENGLISH SOUNDS 177 

A third comprehensive and systematic scheme of 
spelling reform, which is the exact opposite of that pro- 
posed by the phonetic reformers, is the one which, recog- 
nizing the difficulty of making English spelling conform 
to English pronunciation, seizes the other horn of the 
dilemma, and proposes that English pronunciation be 
made to conform to English spelling. The advocates of 
this theory, if there are any serious enough in its de- 
fense to be called its advocates, point out that we now 
have an approximately fixed and rigid system of spell- 
ing, and that it seems to be easier for us to make our 
spelling fixed and permanent and standard than our 
pronunciation. Why not, therefore, make spelling the 
standard of pronunciation, and instead of trying to 
write as we speak, speak as we write ? This ingenious 
proposal has one main obstacle in its way, an obstacle 
which, as we have had occasion to remark, lies in the 
way of many another proposal for the reform of lan- 
guage, and that is that the English language does not 
grow and adapt itself to the far-reaching plans of theo- 
rists, but as it lives and is utilized in the every-day in- 
tercourse of life. The history of English pronunciation 
has shown that in a comparatively very small number 
of words, the written form has reacted upon the spoken 
form and altered its pronunciation to conform to the 
spelling; thus, our word perfect (purfekt) is originally 
a learned spelling, based on the Latin perfectum, for the 
word which was spelled parfit in Chaucer and which 
was pronounced as it was written. The learned spell- 
ing, however, not only crowded out the spelling parfit, 
but even, in time, made the pronunciation parfit conform 
to the spelling perfect. On the other hand, the word 

12 



178 MODERN ENGLISH 

debt, which Chaucer spelled and pronounced det, be- 
cause it is ultimately derived from Latin debeo, debitum, 
was given a b by the Renascence spelling reformers; 
this 5, tho we have retained it in our spelling, debt, 
has never succeeded in making its way into the pro- 
nunciation as has the c in perfect. Other examples 
might be cited, but the instances in which pronunci- 
ation has adapted itself to the spelling of words are 
so few that they show the futility of the endeavor to 
make the principle of speaking as you write one of 
general application. 

But if the theories for the reconstruction of English 
spelling which have just been discussed must be pro- 
nounced as impossible and visionary, it does not follow 
that nothing can be done for the English spelling of the 
present and of the future. We may refuse our support 
to radical and revolutionary movements without pass- 
ing to the other extreme of ultra-conservatism. There 
is a middle ground between the complete reform of 
English spelling and unquestioning acquiescence in and 
acceptance of that which we have; and instead of at- 
tempting the thoro reconstruction of our spelling, we 
may more safely and with greater hope of success 
strive for the improvement and simplification of our 
present system. Any changes which are made must 
be duly considered; they must be tested by the prin- 
ciples which have governed the growth of the language 
in the past, because it is only by the study of these 
historical principles that we acquire a knowledge of 
language and acquire safe rules of guidance. Each 
change or each group of changes, therefore, offers a 
special problem which demands special consideration. 



ENGLISH SOUNDS 179 

Only a few of the more important can be discussed 
here. 

A large number, perhaps the majority of instances, 
in which the question of spelling arises, come under the 
general head of choice between two spellings, both of 
which already are in current use. The determination 
of the choice rests of course upon the circumstances of 
each case, but a good rule of general application is, of 
two spellings choose the simpler. Other things being 
equal, that is always the simpler and the preferable of 
two spellings which is the shorter, or which is in con- 
formity with the more general phonetic practice of the 
language. When one has the choice between a familiar 
English spelling and a strange or unusual spelling, the 
preference should be for the former. Thus there is little 
justification for the spelling gaol when we have the 
form jail, or for the spelling troupe when we have 
troop} 

In making simplifications in spelling, however, it 
should be remembered that it is not necessary, or indeed 
possible, to be thoroly consistent. We may decide to 
omit certain silent letters, but it does not follow that we 
should omit all silent letters. We may omit the u in 
honour without omitting it in course, thus spelling that 
word like the noun corse. The only safe guiding rule is 
to simplify spelling when there are advantages to be 
gained and no counterbalancing losses. Complete lists 

1 "Early in the first scene of his Critic, Sheridan used the word 
' troop ' in the sense of a theatrical company of actors ; also Malone, in 
his edition of Shakespeare published in 1821 (Vol. iii, p. 175), uses the 
word ' troop ' in the same sense. I must quote them as my authority. 
Perhaps I may be wrong, but I prefer 'troop ' to ' troupe.' " H. M. 
Trollope, Life ofMoliere, p. viii. 



180 MODERN ENGLISH 

of these possible simple spellings cannot be given here, 
but a few of the classes of words affected may be indi- 
cated. 1 

In general they will be found to fall under three main 
heads, as follows : 

(I) Of two possible spellings, choose the one which follows 
the usual spelling of the language. 

(a) Write center, meter, miter, theater, etc., like father, 
winter, manner, etc. 

(b) Write criticize, penalize, legalize, and so in all words 
with the -ize suffix, avoiding thus the two forms -ise and -ize. 
Also in the roots of words with the two spellings s and z, 
choose z as being the usual representation for the sound; 
examples are raze, teazel, vizor, devize, comprize, surprize, 
and so forth. 

(c) Write e (instead of ae, oe) in word likes esthetic, ency- 
clopedia, medieval, archeology, dieresis, etc. 

(d) Write -ow instead of -ough in plow. 

(e) Write -i for -y in gipsy. 

(II) Omit silent letters wherever usage permits it. 

(a) Write abridgment, judgment, acknowledgment, etc., 
instead of abridgement, etc. Write the plurals of all nouns 
ending in o in -os, that is, potatos, tomatos, negros, pianos, 
cargos, folios, etc. 

(b) Write ax, adz, develop, domicil, envelop, glycerin, wo, 
etc., instead of axe, adze, develope, etc. 

1 For further discussion, students are referred to the lists of double spell 
iugs given in Webster, Worcester, and the Standard Dictionaries ; also to 
circulars of the Simplified Spelling Board, where lists are printed of words 
in common use which are spelled in two or more ways. Attention may- 
be called also to the long lists of Amended Spellings at the end of the 
Century Dictionary, together with the introductory remarks preceding 
these lists. All interested in the question of English spelling should com- 
municate with the Simplified Spelling Board, 1 Madison Avenue, New 
York City, whose interesting publications will be sent free on application. 



ENGLISH SOUNDS 181 

(c) Write bun, distil, fulfil, fulness, etc., instead of bunn, 
distill, etc. 

(d) Write wagon, fagot, woolen, etc., instead of waggon, 
faggot, woollen, etc. 

(e) Omit the final -me of words like programme, etc., 
writing program, gram, diagram, etc. ; the final -te of words 
like epaulette, writing epaulet, omelet, coquet, etc. ; the 
final -ue of words like prologue, writing prolog, dialog, cata- 
log, decalog, etc. 

(J) Instead of honour, etc., write honor, ardor, fervor, 
savior, color, etc. 

(Ill) Use phonetic spelling whenever it seems advisable 
to do so, that is, whenever usage has so far accustomed the 
reader to the phonetic spelling that his attention will not be 
distracted too much to the new form of the word. Some 
phonetic spellings are of course now conventional and regu- 
lar, as, for example, fancy, fantasy, with initial / instead of 
ph. So also with fantom instead of phantom, and sulfur 
instead of sulphur. By the same analogy we should also 
write fonetic, fonograf, fosfate, fotograf, etc., spellings 
which are at present questioned, but which are bound to be 
the spellings of the future. The past tenses of verbs like 
cross, crush, clip, mix, that is, verbs in which the stem ends 
in a voiceless continuant or stop consonant, may be formed 
merely by the addition of t, giving instead of crossed, crushed, 
etc., the forms crost, crusht, dipt, etc. These phonetic spell- 
ings are to be found frequently in the poets, whose writings, 
making as they do a special appeal to the ear, are likely to 
be more phonetic than those of prose authors ; but numerous 
instances of their use may also be found in works written in 
prose. Likewise the spelling altho and tho are of not un- 
common occurrence in literature, either with the apostrophe 
added to indicate the loss of ugh {altho 1 , tho'), or without the 
apostrophe. The omission of the ugh is a natural and easy 
simplification, and the spelling tho, altho, and thoroly should 



182 MODERN ENGLISH 

be generally accepted. With many persons, some hesita- 
tion is felt with respect to the form thru for through, re- 
commended by the American Educational Association, the 
Simplified Spelling Board, and various other bodies. The 
spelling thru, however, is logical (u after r has the value u, 
as in rule, rude, rune, ruminate, etc.), and a good deal of the 
disfavor with which it is regarded is due to the novelty of the 
form. But the use of any spelling cannot be made compul- 
sory, and any one who disapproves of the form thru has per- 
fect right to refuse to use it, altho the same liberty of 
choice which one claims for oneself one should allow to others. 
In spelling reform, as in all other developments in language, 
we must trust to a frank interchange of opinion and a ready 
acceptance of the best for the accomplishment of changes 
that shall be of permanent and general value. 



VI 

ENGLISH WORDS 

1. The Study of Words. The study of words is in 
many respects the most approachable side of the study 
of language. This is true partly because the word is, 
in a way, an independent fact of language, and is 
thus much more readily appreciated than are sounds 
or inflections. Besides, the word has very immediate 
connections with thought. A history of the words of a 
language is almost a complete history of the thought 
and the civilization of the people which speaks that 
language. The study of words is also of very great 
importance in the practical affairs of every-day life. One 
of the most valuable accomplishments a person can have 
is the ability to express himself clearly and forcibly in 
language, and to do this he must know how to use words, 
must know their significances, their connotations, and 
their possibilities. Of course no one supposes that mere 
information about words, however wide that information 
may be, will make a good writer or speaker; it is the 
just combination of thought with its appropriate words 
that is the result to be attained, and it is the proper 
purpose of the study of words to provide the unclothed 
thought with its fitting garb of expression. 

All words have established themselves in the language 
in one of two ways, first, either by original creation, that 
is, the actual formation of new words or the new adapta- 



184 MODERN ENGLISH 

tion of old ones, this latter process being as much creation 
as the formation of new words outright ; or second, by 
borrowing from other languages. These two methods of 
building up the vocabulary of the English language will 
now be considered in detail. 

2. Word Creation. The question which probably 
rises first in the mind of the student of vocabulary is, 
What is the ultimate origin of the native words of the 
language with which we are so familiar? Did some 
primitive language creator fashion all words at one fixed 
time, and have we continued to use this original stock 
since then without adding our creations to it ? Or does 
the creation of words still continue as an active process? 
To these questions the first answer is that by far the 
greater number of words are inherited from countless gen- 
erations of speakers of the language who have preceded 
us. Our native words are therefore mainly a tradi- 
tional inheritance just as our other common social posses- 
sions, as, for example, the organization of the family or 
the state, are traditional inheritances. They go back so 
far that their first origin is prehistoric and can be con- 
sidered and explained only with the aid of theory. 

The earliest and most primitive theoretical stage of 
language about which it is fruitful to reflect is the period 
of root-creation. To understand this stage of language 
we may examine the parallel to it in the language of 
children when they are first learning to speak. To 
a child such a word as " ball " may mean anything which 
has one of the characteristics of a ball, for example, that 
of roundness. Thus he may call an apple "ball," or a 
round stone, or the moon, or anything round. To him the 
word " ball " expresses the root-idea of anything with 



ENGLISH WORDS 185 

the quality of roundness. So to a child the word u choo- 
choo," to use a childish word, may mean a train of cars, 
or a steam engine, or even things which to an older and 
more observant person are not at all like these, for 
example, a tea-kettle with the steam coming from it. In 
veiy primitive stages of human development we may 
suppose a state of affairs similar to that in the language 
of the child. Language consisted of a more or less 
limited number of generalized word-forms, or root- words, 
of wide application, but of corresponding indefiniteness 
of meaning. 

The first thing which primitive speakers would natu- 
rally strive to do, would be to make these root-words 
more specific in their values so that language could be 
more exact. There would thus begin a development and 
specialization in the use of words which has continued 
to the present day, and which will continue so long as 
the language is a living, spoken, and written medium 
of expression. 

These later developments in specialization did not often 
take the direction of the creation of new roots. This is 
a power which probably became restricted in very early 
periods of the development of language, and which 
is now almost completely lost in English, being exem- 
plified only in the invention of words the mere sound of 
which is descriptive of the objects they name. Examples 
of such "echoic words," as they have been called, are 
boom, fizz, simmer, sizzle, pop, snicker, whir, whiz, etc. More 
usually, however, specialization in vocabulary has come 
about in historic times not through the creation of new 
roots, but by means of the adaptation and development of 
old material. Such adaptations are still to be regarded as 



186 MODERN ENGLISH 

creations in language, since it is by an internal develop- 
ment of its own resources that the language increases 
its power and variety. This remains to-day a frequent 
method of growth in language, and some of the more 
important of these changes, which may be grouped under 
the general head of differentiation in vocabulary, will 
now be considered. 

3. Differentiation by G-radation. As a means of 
differentiating the meaning of words, gradation is no 
longer an active principle in English, altho the work- 
ings of it in earlier periods are still to be observed in 
many Modern English words. The way in which words 
are differentiated in meaning by gradation may be best 
described by means of an illustration. We have, for 
example, the verb "drive," with its principal parts 
" drive," " drove," " driven." The form " drive" may also 
be a noun, as in the phrase " a long drive " ; so also 
" drove " appears as a noun in " a drove of cattle " ; and 
the first three letters of " driven " in " a drift of snow." 
We have, therefore, in these words a sort of root-form 
of word for the general idea of driving, which might be 
expressed by merely the consonant framework of it as 
drv or drf. To differentiate this generalized root- 
meaning, the language places different vowels in this 
consonant frame, in this instance the vowels ai, 6, and i. 
Gradation is most readily observed in Modern English 
in the tense formation of the irregular or strong verbs, 
as " sing," " sang," " sung," to which add also the noun 
"song"; "ride," "rode," "ridden," to which add the 
nouns "raid" and "road"; "rise," "rose," "risen"; 
" bear," " bore," " borne," to which add the noun " bier," 
that upon which a body is borne, and " bairn," one who 



ENGLISH WORDS 187 

is born in the natural sense, and the nouns " birth " and 
" burden." Many of the words of the language are thus 
held together in such gradation groups, all of the words 
of the respective groups having the same general meaning 
but each being a specific application of that meaning. 
Not all words, however, are members of gradation groups, 
some of the oldest and most familiar words in the lan- 
guage, such as " house," " stone," " water," etc., appar- 
ently standing quite separate and independent. Words 
of this sort are, therefore, the only recognizable surviv- 
ing representatives of the original root-words. 

4. Differentiation by Composition. The method 
of word formation or differentiation by composition is 
one that has existed from very early times and is still 
actively employed in the English language. It consists 
not in changing the root-form of the word, but in add- 
ing something to it, in placing side by side two previ- 
ously independent elements, which then fuse into a single 
meaning, different from the meaning of either element 
taken singly. The most obvious kind of composition is 
that in which we have the juxtaposition of two words 
each of which, taken separately, has a definite and clear 
meaning. We may call this the composition of full- 
words, the various kinds of full-words still compounded 
in English being as follows : 

(a) Noun + noun compounds, as in typewriter, door-sill, 
saw-horse, window-frame, pleasure-trip, pleasureground, 
Mayfair, shot-gun, silvertip (the grizzly bear), etc. In all 
these instances we have two ideas loosely approximated, to 
form a new idea, the specific value of the new idea being 
intrusted to the inference of the speaker or hearer. This 
method of composition approaches the use of the adjective 



188 MODERN ENGLISH 

before the noun, but differs from it, as can be seen by com- 
paring "a gold ring" and "a goldmine" ; or the sentences 
" This cane has a silver tip" and " This bear is a silvertip." 
(6) Adjective + noun compounds, as in blackbird, black- 
berry, Broadway, highway, whitewash, hotbed, busybody, 
shortcut, quickstep, sweetbread, etc. 

(c) Noun + adjective compounds, as in penny -wise, pound- 
foolish, water-tight, grass-green, man-shaped, purse-proud, 
stone-cold ; cf . King Richard III, Act I, Sc. 2, 1. 5 : " Poor 
key-cold figure of a holy king." 

(d) Adverb + verb compounds, forming nouns, as in 
downfall, downpour, output, upstart, upshot, offshoot, undertow, 
etc. 

(e) Verb + adverb compounds, forming nouns, in words 
usually of only very colloquial character, as in " the go-by," 
" a come-down," "a break-up," " a cut-off," " a walk-over" 
" a dug-out," etc. 

(/) Adjective or adverb + adjective or adverb, as in blue- 
green, unheard-of, ever-young, evergreen, long-winded, worldly- 
wise, outright, 

(g) Adverb + verb compounds, forming verbs, as in undo, 
overdo, underrate, gainsay, withstand, etc. 

(h) Preposition compounds, as in into, because, beside, 
alongside, unto, until, etc. 

(£) Particle compounds, as in nevertheless, altho(ugh), 
altogether, notwithstanding, always, etc. 

(J) Verb stem (originally imperative) + noun, expressing 
the object of the action of the verb idea, as in breakwater, 
breakfast, driveway, standpoint, scapegrace, scarecrow, turn- 
key, carryall, etc. 1 

(k) Phrase compounds, groups of words which through 
long custom have come to be written together, as in father - 

1 See Bradley, Making of English, p. 114. To this group belongs 
view-point, a compound so recent that it is regarded as objectionable by 
many. 



ENGLISH WORDS 189 

in-law, man-of-war, tradesman (originally trade's man, a 
man of trade), goodnight (from / wish you a good night), 
hand-to-mouth, etc. 

It is often very difficult to tell whether a compound 
should be written with a hyphen or hyphens or without 
them. The usage of good writers, of dictionaries, and 
of the printing houses differs widely in this respect. In 
general we may say that the closer the compound the 
less need there is of the hyphen. It is a safe rule, there- 
fore, to use the hyphen only where it seems necessary, 
and this will have to be determined largely by one's own 
judgment and observation. It should be noted also that 
there is often no essential difference between words which 
are written as compounds and other words which are 
never so written, as, for example, "out of" and "into" 
in the sentence, " He fell out of the frying-pan into the 
fire." So words like " notwithstanding," " neverthe- 
less," etc., are written together, whereas the approxi- 
mately equivalent words, "on the contrary," "in spite 
of," etc., are never so written. The question is one 
which often has to be left to the arbitrary decision of 
usage. 

5. Obscure Compounds. Attention has already 
been called to the fact (pp. 142 ff.) that one element of a 
compound word tends to become obscured in pronuncia- 
tion, and thus to lose its significance. As result of this 
tendency we now have a great many words in English 
which were formerly compounds of full-words, and 
which were felt as such, but which now no longer show 
the elements of which they are composed. Examples are 
ivindow, from Old English wind 4- eage, " wind-eye " ; 



190 MODERN ENGLISH 

nostril, from Old English nos + ]>yrel, " nose-hole " ; 
starbord, from Old English steor + bord, " steer-board," 
the board (cf. sea-board), or side of a boat, from which 
the steering is done ; hussy, from Old English hus + wif, 
"house-wife"; ivoman, from Old English wif + man ; 
gossip, from Old English god + sib, literally " god-friend," 
used first of the sponsors at baptism, then of any famil- 
iar friend of the family, then by natural transition to its 
present meaning of gossip; stirrup, from Old English 
stig + rap, " mounting-rope " ; dipsey (as in dipsey 
chantey), from deep + sea; brimstone, from brin (by 
metathesis from "burn," cf. Germ, brennen) + stone, 
" burn-stone " ; bam, from Old English ber + osrn, ber = 
" barley," cern, " building," the whole word meaning, 
therefore, " building in which barley was kept " ; or- 
chard, from Old English ort + geard, literally " garden 
yard," the first element being probably the same as 
Latin hortus. In a word like cupboard the compound has 
become obscured in pronunciation, altho the spelling 
still keeps clear the elements of which it is composed. 
In many instances popular etymology has endeavored to 
make full compounds out of words which were of quite 
different etymological origin. Thus the word hiccough, 
pronounced hickup, seems really to be derived from a 
form hicket, the first syllable hick- being allied to the 
form hack-, as in " a hacking cough," and the syllable 
-et being merely a diminutive suffix. The spelling hic- 
cough arose apparently because the word was thought 
to have something to do with the word cough. Other 
familiar instances of similar popular etymologies are 
sparroiv-grass from asparagus; ashfalt from asphalt; 
causeway from the French word chausee, meaning a 



ENGLISH WORDS 191 

high-road ; crayfish, or popularly cratvfish, from Old 
French crevice. Modern French ecrevisse. The word 
hackneyed, as in " a hackneyed phrase," meaning some- 
thing worn down from constant usage, derived from the 
Old French haquenee, " an ambling horse or mare," then 
by extension, any horse put out to public hire, and by 
still further extension, anything overworked, is some- 
times etymologized into hack-kneed. In all these in- 
stances more or less unfamiliar words are explained in 
terms of other words, the forms of which at least are 
more familiar, altho their connection in meaning with 
the original word is often quite remote. 

6. Compositional Elements. Besides the compo- 
sition of full-words, English makes frequent use of cer- 
tain word-forms which, taken separately, do not have 
any clear and full meaning, but which are used only as 
prefixes and suffixes to make more specific the meaning 
of other words. These compositional elements, as they 
may be called, may possibly all have been full-words at 
some remote period, but if so this full meaning of most 
of them has been lost more completely than it has in the 
case of the obscure compounds mentioned in the pre- 
ceding section. The method by which compositional 
elements are used to differentiate the meaning of words 
is too familiar to need extended illustration. The ele- 
ment -dom, for example, forms compounds like kingdom, 
wisdom, freedom, etc. ; -hood forms the compounds 
knighthood, childhood, manhood, priesthood, etc. ; -ship 
appears in friendship, kinship, worship, felloioship, etc. ; 
-er is very common as a suffix in nouns of agency, as 
in baker, writer, singer, driver, teetotaler, abstainer, etc. 
Examples of prefixes are a- in arise, alight ; be- in bedeck, 



192 MODERN ENGLISH 

berate, bespeak, etc. It is to be noted that the free use 
of compositional elements to form new words has been 
very much restricted by traditional usage. With the 
suffix -th we can form the noun youth from young, truth 
from true, mirth from mer(ry), wealth from weal, health 
from heal, etc. ; but we cannot form gloomth from gloom, 
or wrongth from wrong, or tilth from ill, etc. Moreover, 
certain compositional elements tend to take on a very 
specific value, not of course to the extent of becoming 
full-words, altho they acquire the power of changing 
the root word in a very definite way. Thus the prefix 
be- has acquired to a considerable extent the power of 
giving a derogatory or slightly contemptuous sense to 
the word with which it is compounded, as in bepraise, 
befog, bedeck, bedizen, bedevil, belabor, bedaub, besmear, 
bemire, befuddle, becalm, bedraggle, bemuse. This value 
of be- is illustrated in the following stanza of Kipling's 
Cruisers : 

As our mother, the Frigate, bepainted and fine, 
Made play for her bully, the Ship of the Line ; 
So we, her bold daughters by iron and fire, 
Accost and destroy to our master's desire. 

So also the suffix -ard, when it is limited to persons, is 
used only in a derogatory sense, as in coward, sluggard, 
niggard, wizard, dullard, dastard, bastard, dotard, drunk- 
ard, beside which we have only a few nouns, such as 
blizzard, gizzard, custard, mustard, etc., of various etymo- 
logical origins. The suffix -ish also has an interesting 
history. In the earlier periods of the language it was 
used to form adjectives of quality without particular 
connotation, as in Englisc, " English," folcisc, " folkish " 
(i. e., to use the modern Latin equivalent word, " pop- 



ENGLISH WORDS 193 

ular ") ; and Chaucer (Troilus and Criseyde, V, 1. 1813) 
even speaks of u hevenish melodye." Later the suffix 
came to be applied to adjectives in order to indicate a 
slight degree of the quality named by the adjective, as 
bluish, brackish, siveetish, etc., and then, perhaps through 
such words as boyish, girlish, to give a somewhat con- 
temptuous or scornful turn to the word, as in womanish, 
mannish, childish, as compared with womanly, manly, 
childlike, and in other adjectives like bookish, heathenish, 
etc. 1 In Chaucer, however, the suffixes -ly and -ish had 
not yet been differentiated. This is shown by his phrase, 
"heavenish melody," with which compare his use of 
fiendly where we should now have to say fiendish : 

That man hath a feendly herte. 

Book of the Duchess, 593. 

Inflectional elements are often closely related to com- 
positional elements, and, as has already been pointed out, 2 
many of them were probably independent full-words 
which have become very much obscured in the course of 
time. 

7. Differentiation by Metaphor. This method of 
differentiating the meanings of words consists in chang- 
ing a word from one order of thought to another without 
changing its form. This may be done in various ways, 
as follows : 

(1) A concrete term may be changed from one concrete 
sense to another, as, for example, the word crane, originally 

1 It is interesting to note that a parallel development has taken place 
in the case of the same ending, -isch, in German, as in words like diebisch, 
narrisch, etc. See Brugmann, The Nature and Origin of the Noun Genders, 
pp. 28-30. 

2 See above, pp. 56-58. 

13 



194 MODERN ENGLISH 

the name of the bird, becomes also the name for the hoisting 
machine, the most notable thing about both cranes being their 
long legs. The word horse, first the name of the animal, 
may mean also a piece of gymnasium apparatus, or a rack 
for hanging objects on, as a clothes-horse. The noun 
key from its first literal sense passes to numerous meta- 
phorical senses, as, for example, its use to designate a book 
which gives answers to problems contained in another book ; 
or we may speak of an important fact as "the key to the 
myster} 7 ." Primarily the word chest meant only a box, usu- 
ally a box in which valuables were kept; but about the 
sixteenth century it came to be used also of the framework 
of the breast which encloses the heart, a figurative use which 
is exemplified in various conscious metaphors before it 
settles down into the literal meaning. Thus we have the 
following couplet in Shakspere's Richard II, Act I, Sc. 1, 11. 
180-181 : 

" A jewel in a ten-times barr'd-up chest, 
Is a bold spirit in a loyal breast." 

Shakspere's contemporary, Sir John Davies, elaborates the 
same figure in the following stanza of his Nosce Te Ipsum 
with a fullness of detail which to a modern writer would be 
quite impossible now that the word chest has acquired literal 
and commonplace meanings : 

( ' O ignorant poor man ! what dost thou beare 
Lockt up within the casket of thy brest? 
What iewels, and what riches hast thou there ! 
What heavenly treasure in so weake a chest! " * 

This feeling for the figurative use of chest may be further 
illustrated by the use of box in a similar way in the following 
passage from a seventeenth century writer : "I had yours 
lately by a safe hand, wherein I find you open to me all the 
Boxes of your Breast." 2 

1 Davies, Nosce Te Ipsum, ed. Grosart, I, 114. 

2 Howell, Familiar Letters, ed. Jacobs, II, 378. 



ENGLISH WORDS 195 

The parts of the human body are used very frequently with 
this transferred metaphorical value. Thus head may be used 
of the head of a nail, screw, or pin ; of a head of lettuce ; the 
front of an engine, as illustrated by " head-light" ; and of 
many other similar objects ; we also speak of the leg of a 
table or chair; the foot of a mountain ; the hand of a watch 
or dial ; the eye of a needle ; the nose of a boat or ship ; the 
ear, meaning handle, of a bottle, as in Cowper's John 
Gilpin's Ride, "Each bottle had a curling ear " ; x the mouth of 
a vessel or a river ; the beard of a head of wheat or barley; 
the teeth of a saw ; the tongue of a wagon ; the cheek of 
a peach; the arm of a lever; the bosom of the earth; and 
there are many other instances, literally too numerous to 
mention. 

(2) A concrete word may be changed from a physical sense 
to an intellectual or spiritual sense, as the adjective burn- 
ing in "a burning desire," or cold in "a cold disposition," 
or heavy in " a heavy heart." The word sad had originally a 
physical meaning which persists, however, only in a few uses, 
like sad-iron, or as descriptive of heavy, soggy cake or bread. 
The adjective sullen has a somewhat similar history. It is 
derived ultimately from a Late Latin sola7ius, through the 
French, meaning " single, solitary." Thus Chaucer in his 
Parlement of Foules (1. 607) has the cuckoo say that if he 
can have his mate, the other birds may be sullen, or in 
Chaucer's spelling, soleyn, all their lives. This meaning 
persists fairly late, as may be seen from its use by Defoe 
(Essay on Projects, London, 1697, p. 244) : " But there is a 
direct Signification of Words, or a Cadence in Expression, 
which we call speaking Sense ; this, like Truth, is sullen and 
the same, ever was and will be so, in what manner and in 
what Language soever 't is express'd." From single or soli- 

1 The word ear, in " ear of corn," is etymologically a different word, 
though now it is usually thought of as being a metaphorical use of the 
name of part of the body. 



196 MODERN ENGLISH 

tary in the physical sense to the meaning aloof, sullen, in the 
spiritual or mental sense, is an easy transition. 

(3) An intellectual word, on the other hand, may be used 
to designate a concrete person or object, as the word wit, in 
its intellectual sense meaning brilliance or ingenuity, in its 
concrete sense, as in the sentence " He is a great wit," mean- 
ing " a witty man." So trust in its intellectual sense is the 
name of an abstract quality, in its concrete sense it is the 
name of a group of men organized for certain purposes of 
business. Dialectally and colloquially, also, the abstract 
noun misery takes a concrete sense in sentences like "I've 
got a misery in my back " ; compare also the use of pain 
as both abstract and concrete. 

(4) Words appropriate to living beings may be transferred 
to inanimate objects. This process is frequently exemplified 
in poetry, where Ruskin has given it the name "pathetic 
fallacy." Thus Coleridge in The Ancient Mariner speaks of 
"the silly buckets," and Ruskin quotes such lines as " the 
cruel, crawling foam." 1 In ordinary colloquial use we have 
such phrases as " a dumb waiter," " a blind alley," "a crying 
need," etc. These are, or were originally, very strong meta- 
phors and had the effect of personifying the objects to which 
they applied. They differ thus from the examples given under 
(1), such as the " leg of a chair," which is a perfectly matter- 
of-fact use of the word tc leg." 

(5) Words appropriate to one group of sense perceptions 
may be extended in their use by applying them to a different 
group, as when we speak of " a loud color," or " a sweet 
voice," "a dull sound," "a bright melody," etc. 

1 Modern Painters, Part IV, Chapter XII : " The foam is not cruel, 
neither does it crawl. The state of mind which attributes to it these char- 
acters of a living creature is one in which the reason is unhinged by grief. 
All violent feelings have the same effect. They produce in us a falseness in 
all our impressions of external things, which I would generally characterize 
as the ' Pathetic Fallacy.' " 



ENGLISH WORDS 197 

8. Differentiation by Functional Change. One of 

the most interesting of the ways in which our vocabu- 
lary is given variety in use is by the passage of a word 
from one part of speech to another. Modern English is 
especially free in its use of this kind of differentiation, 
or specialization in words, as is shown by the following 
illustrations : : 

(1) Adjectives become nouns, as in " the good, the true, and 
the beautiful " ; " so much to the good" ; " he has gone to the 
bad " ; " he was ordered to the front " ; "a nickel " = a five- 
cent piece; " a pug " = a pug dog; " the young of the 
eagle " ; " the village green " ; "a square " = a city block or 
square; "the blues" \ "the pine barrens" This happens 
frequently in the case of proper adjectives, which lose their 
adjective value and become pure nouns, as china, from " China 
ware " ; calico, from " Calicut cloth " ; bantam, from " Ban- 
tam fowl." 

(2) Nouns become adjectives, as in " a New York bank," 
" a beefsteak dinner," " a dinner card/' " an insurance agent," 
" a raihuay official," "a city superintendent," " a water fam- 
ine," etc. 2 

1 Note how closely some words in Modern English, because of the vari- 
ous functional and figurative values which they may have, have come to 
approach the use of root-words in their ability to express a large group of 
related ideas. The word head, for example, may be a noun naming the 
part of the body ; or the beginning of anything, as the head of a list, or 
page, or river or lake ; or anything shaped somewhat like a head, as a 
head of cabbage, the head of a drum, the head of a nail or screw, etc. It 
may also be a verb, as in the sentence, " He heads the list," or " This 
lettuce heads early," i. e., makes a head. It may further be an adjective, 
as in " the head waters of the rivers," " the head clerk," " the head (cf. 
chief, from Latin caput through French chef) difficulty," etc. 

2 Some of these examples are essentially the same as the noun -f- noun 
compounds described above, differing only in that they are not written with 
hyphens. This method of differentiation is sometimes adversely criticised 
by grammarians and rhetoricians. It is, however, one of the most active 
methods of word change in present English, and the language would be 
much the poorer without this capability. 



198 MODERN ENGLISH 

(3) Verbs become nouns, as in "a brand of goods," from 
the act of branding ; " a drive of logs " ; " the help " (i. e., 
the servants) ; " to give one a lift " ; ' 'a, find " ; " the domi- 
nant, primordial beast who had made his kill and found it 
good " (London, Call of the Wild) ; " Yield them permit to 
eat the sacred corn " (Aldrich, Judith and Holofernes) ; "a 
combine" 

(4) Nouns become verbs, as in " to house the poor" ; " to 
carpet a room "; " to stone a cat " ; " to bridge a stream" ; 
" to board a ship or train." 

(5) Pronouns become nouns, as in " In the south only 
the shes with young and the fat he-bears retire for the sleep." 
(Roosevelt, Hunting the Grisly, p. 54.) 

(6) Adverbs become verbs, as in " He downed his oppo- 
nent the first round " ; " Then he offs with his hat." 

(7) Adverbs become nouns, as " Now is the accepted time" • 
" A noise was heard from without " ; "I have just come from 
there." 

(8) Adjectives become verbs, as in " The house fronts the 
street " ; " Acid sours milk " ; " Who will brown the toast ? " 
' ' He backed the horse," etc. 

(9) Prepositions become adjectives, as in "a through 
train"; " the under dog"; " by product"; in bystander, 
byword, etc., the preposition has been united to another word 
forming a close compound. The word by-laws is sometimes 
mistakenly supposed to be made up of the preposition by + 
the noun law, the compound having the sense of secondary or 
minor law. In origin, however, the element by in by-law is a 
Scandinavian word meaning ' ' town," as it appears in place- 
names like Whitby, Derby, etc. The original meaning of the 
compound was therefore " town law," and this, in distinction 
to the general or national law, readily passed over into the 
derived modern meaning of secondary or minor law. 

(10) Adverbs become adjectives, as in "the off horse " ; 
tt the then Bishop of Lichfield " (Newman, Apologia, p. 31) ; 



ENGLISH WORDS 199 

" waiting for the down mail to Falmouth" (ibid., p. 32); 
" outer darkness " ; " over rocks and down timber " (Roose- 
velt, Hunting the Grisly, p. 59). 

(11) Verbs usually intransitive become transitive, as in 
"Cornell will row Wisconsin " ; " to walk a horse"; " to 
-walk the streets " ; " to jump a fence " ; cf . Whitman, in 
Captain, my Captain: "I walk the deck my captain lies.'" 

(12) Verbs usually transitive become intransitive, as in 
"I don't sing, but I'm fond of playing." 

To some slight extent we also have differentiation by 
accent in Modern English. Thus we have the verbs perfume' , 
compound' ', contract', present', etc., with the corresponding 
nouns per' fume, com'pound, con'tract, pres'ent, etc. Some- 
times the difference in accent is accompanied by other slight 
differences of form and pronunciation, as in the adjectives 
hu'man, humane', an' tic, antique'. 

9. Slang. Any consideration of creation in language, 
or the differentiation in the meanings of words, must 
necessarily take up the question of slang. There is an 
initial difficulty, however, in that it is extremely hard to 
give a satisfactory definition of slang. The matter is 
very largely one of individual feeling. What is re- 
garded as slang by one person is regarded as perfectly 
correct, colorless English by another. Thus the phrases 
u on the wrong tack," " to go back on one," or " to give 
oneself away," etc., may be regarded by one speaker 
merely as good vigorous colloquial English, whereas 
another over-cautious speaker may reject them as utterly 
reprehensible and " slangy." So also the phrase a out of 
sight " acquired a certain slang use which for a time was 
widely current ; but certainly no one would think that 
Lowell meant to use the phrase with this value in the 
following lines from the Vision of Sir Launfal: 



200 MODERN ENGLISH 

He sculptured every summer delight 
In his halls and chambers out of sight. 

A similar illustration is to be found in the use of "fire" 
in the sense of discharge or expel, as in " to fire a person 
out of a room " ; exactly the same occurs in Shakspere, 
without any of the connotation of slang, in the following 
lines, the thought of which is the presence of two spirits, 
one good and one evil, in man's heart : 

Yet this shall I ne'er know, but live in doubt, 
Till my bad angel fire my good one out. 

Sonnets, cxliv. 

Indeed the feeling for slang is on the whole of rather 
modern origin. In Shakspere's day and earlier the lan- 
guage was free to be as expressive as it could and in 
any way in which it could. Slang can arise only when 
certain things are not permitted, for there is always the 
flavor of forbidden fruit in slang. In reading early 
authors, consequently, one is frequently struck by forms 
of expression which would have been slang if the con- 
ventions of the time had been more rigid. Thus Chaucer 
(Parlement of Foules, 1. 595) says : There been mo sterres, 
god wot, than a paire, " There are more stars, God knows, 
than a pair," which is a close parallel to the recent slang 
expression, " There 's more than one pebble on the beach." 
In the Bigby Plays (p. 14, 1. 338) occurs the expression, 
thou to make me a knight, that were on the newe, which 
cannot fail to remind one of the modern " on the side." 
An Elizabethan critic, Richard Carew, wrote a little 
treatise on the excellency of the English tongue, about 
the year 1595, in which he illustrates the richness of the 
English language by showing in how many different 
ways we can get rid of a person; his list is as follows, 



ENGLISH WORDS 201 

and it is interesting to see how many of his phrases 
would now fall under the general condemnation as 
slang: "neither cann any tongue (as I am pers waded) 
deliuer a matter with more varietye then ours, both 
plainely and by prouerbes and Metaphors ; for example, 
when wee would be rid of one, wee vse to saye Bee going, 
trudge, pack, be faring, hence, awaye, shifte, and, by cir- 
cumlocution, rather your roome then your companye, 
Letts see your hacke, com againe when I bid you, when 
you are called, sent for, intreated, willed, desiered, inuited, 
spare vs your place, another in your steede, a shipp of salte 
for you, saue your credite, you are next the doore, the 
doore is open for you, theres noe bodye holdes you, no 
bodie teares your sleeue, etc." 1 

The term slang is sometimes used in a very wide 
sense to include all those characteristics of language 
that one disapproves of which do not come under the 
head of bad grammar or of vulgar and improper speech. 
Such a definition of slang, however, is decidedly too 
wide. For there is a certain group of words with very 
clearly defined characteristics which everybody feels as 
having something in common, a spirit or tone, to which 
we should limit the term slang. To fall in this group 
a word must possess certain elements of novelty and 
originality in its use, it must be of a somewhat quaint, 
picturesque, playful, or humorous color, and above all 
it must have patness, freshness, and timeliness in its 
applications. Slang words, however, are always more 
readily felt than described, and the best way to consider 
them is, perhaps, to take up the various types of words 
which fall in the class. 

1 In Gregory Smith, Elizabethan Critical Essays, II, 292. 



202 MODERN ENGLISH 

(1) Counter words as slang. By counter words are 
meant such words as are chosen by common social un- 
derstanding to do service for a great variety of uses. 
These words thus become a sort of blank counter for 
certain ideas to which we do not then give exact and 
definite expression. The invention of such words is a 
social convenience ; it is not always necessary to state 
precisely what we mean, and it is therefore often con- 
venient to have an accepted, conventional word to take 
the place of a specific word. Such counter words in 
present use are words like nice (for the precise meaning 
of which see the dictionary), in all sorts of phrases, as 
in "a nice time," "a nice walk," Ci a nice place," "a- nice 
da}V " a nice dinner," etc. ; or its contrasting counter 
word, awful, as in "an awful job," "awful weather," 
" an awful bore," etc. Counter words because of their 
constant use tend to become weakened in value, to be- 
come almost colorless in meaning, with the result that 
they indicate merely a general attitude of mind of the 
speaker as favorable or unfavorable to the objects spoken 
of. Owing to this tendency, it frequently becomes 
necessary to replace old worn-out counter words by new 
ones. At the time of the present writing, for example, 
the adjective fierce is much used as a general slang term 
of disapproval ; anything which is unpleasant is fierce. 
Whether or not fierce will become a generally used 
counter word, like nice and awful, and will thus weaken 
to a vague general meaning, time only will tell. The 
likelihood is, however, that in a short time it will alto- 
gether disappear. Looking back over only a few years, 
one . can recall numbers of counter words, or phrases, 
which sprang up and were used for a time and then 



ENGLISH WORDS 203 

dropped completely out. If we examine the literature 
of earlier periods we shall find that each had its own 
counter words. Thus in the eighteenth century the 
counter word used in commendatory senses equivalent 
to our nice was the word elegant. It was used in all the 
ways in which nice is now used, and in certain directions 
its use was more extensive, as in such phrases as " the 
elegant author of the Essay on Man," "An elegant essay, 
novel, or poem," etc. It has persisted to the present time, 
mainly in the phrase, "An elegant time." In the Eliza- 
bethan period the favorite counter word, equivalent to 
nice and elegant, was fair. Such a play as Shakspere's 
Love's Labour 's Lost, which is very contemporary in its 
diction, is full of illustrations ; note especially the begin- 
ning of scene one in act four. The variety of its use 
may perhaps be better illustrated by the following pas- 
sage in prose, taken from one of the works of a contem- 
porary of Shakspere : 

" There is now building in Amiens a very faire Nunnery 
for the same Carmelite Nunnes, which do now live in 
another Nunnery that is more obscure and less delightful 
for their contemplation. They remove shortly from that 
wherein they now live to that which is now building, because 
it is a more private and solitary place for their meditation, 
and the service of God. Unto this new Nunnery there 
belongeth a faire garden full of fine spacious walkes, beset 
with sundry pleasant trees. I was at the monastery of the 
Capucins, in whose church there were two faire altars, with 
many pictures of Christ and Saint Francis. They have a 
faire garden belonging to their Monastery, neare to which 
they have a Cloister, wherein are hanged many religious 
pictures, emblemes, and posies tending to mortification. 

" At Saint Germans Church there is a wondrous rich altar, 



204 MODERN ENGLISH 

very abundantly decked with precious ornaments, especially 
a gilt Tabernacle. This is the fairest Altar by many degrees 
that I saw in all the City. 

" The towne house which is very neare to the gate as you 
come into the city from Pickeney is very fair, being three 
stories high, and built with bricke, having goodly armes 
in it. 

"The fairest cage of birds that I saw in al France, was 
at the signe of the Ave Maria in Amiens, the workmanship 
whereof was very curious with gilt wyres. 

"A little on this side Paris, even at the towns end, there is 
thefayrest Gallowes that ever I saw, built upon a little hil- 
lock called Mount Falcon, which consisteth of f ourteene fair 
pillars of free-stone : this gallowes was made in the time of 
the Guisian Massacre, to bang the Admiral of France Chatil- 
lion, who was a Protestant, Anno Dom. 1572." 1 

The question of the attitude which we shall assume 
towards the use of these counter words is of considerable 
interest and importance. It is sometimes said that we 
should avoid using such words of generalized meaning, 
that to do so impoverishes thought, and that we should 
always strive to use definite and specific words. But 
suppose the idea we want to express is not definite and 
specific, but vague and general? Suppose we meet a 
person casually and in friendly salutation remark that it 
is a nice day ? Does not the word nice express there all 
that it is necessary to express ? It shows that we have 
in general kindly feelings towards the weather and no- 
body cares particularly whether it is because of the warm- 
ness or coolness or wetness or dryness of it. In short, 
there are many occasions when we need to express indefi- 

1 Coryat's Crudities, reprinted from the edition of 1611, London, 1776, 
Vol. I, p. 19. The concluding paragraph is on p. 26. 



ENGLISH WORDS 205 

nite and conventional ideas or feelings, and for this pur- 
pose we need indefinite and conventional words. There 
is, therefore, a proper time for the use of counter words, 
and then no other words would take their place. When 
the mind has occasion to use definite and specific words 
to express its thought it will look about and find these 
words ; but the person who never uses any other than 
colorless, indefinite, and general words does so because 
the character of his thought is always colorless, com- 
monplace, and vague. The corrective, therefore, of a 
too vague and general use of words is not merely to 
discontinue the use of the offending words, but to have 
something really definite to say. 

(2) Slang as picturesque metaphor. This is probably 
the source of the largest number of slang words. They 
originate from a striking and novel metaphor which is 
almost always of a ridiculous, or at least humorous, color, 
because of a grotesque contrast between the literal and 
the figurative meanings of the word. Thus recent slang 
has taken the two nouns bird and peach, and has used 
them in all manner of commendatory senses ; anything 
admirable or excellent may be spoken of as a bird or a 
peach. A person who expresses an opinion differing 
from one's own may be said " to be off his base," a met- 
aphor apparently taken from base-ball. Or one whose 
mental operations are peculiar is described as " cracked," 
or " off his nut," both being derived from the metaphor 
of the head as a nut. The word hick is used in a slang, 
metaphorical sense "to oppose " or " to object." Origi- 
nally used of buckling a saddle to a horse's back, the 
word cinch, in its slang use, now means to have a tight 
hold on anything, a sure thing, or an easy time, etc. The 



206 MODERN ENGLISH 

metaphorical use of fire, probably from the figure of 
firing a gun, has already been mentioned ; with it may 
be compared the similar use of bounce. The word pull 
passes in slang from its literal meaning to the metaphor- 
ical one of influence. In the same general group belong 
the words graft, grafter, which literally apply to the 
grafting of something extraneous to an original stock, 
as a twig on a branch, but metaphorically to the person 
who gets more than the legitimate income from his posi- 
tion. In a recent trial a motion to dismiss a slander 
suit was made on the ground that grafter was not a recog- 
nized word of the language. The judge wisely overruled 
the motion, and if he had not, the report goes on to say, 
" what legal redress would a man have when called a 
muckraker or a mollycoddle, both of which words are of 
much later vogue than grafter ? " Illustrations of these 
metaphorical slang creations might be increased indefi- 
nitely. Each day in each community the number is 
added to. Most of such inventions have a very short 
existence ; they take the popular fancy for a time, are 
excessively used, and then are crowded out by some new 
novelty. It should be observed, however, that this 
method of word creation by the invention of slang 
through metaphor is a natural linguistic process that 
has gone on for a long time, that to it the language 
owes much of its effectiveness and expressiveness, and 
that as a natural helpful linguistic process, our attitude 
towards it should not be too scornful. It needs only 
the acceptance of usage, for example, to make a good, 
expressive word of the slang word hick. In many in- 
stances words which were originally striking and pic- 
turesque metaphors have been accepted into conven- 



ENGLISH WORDS 207 

tional good use, as, for example, the word sulky, the 
name of a vehicle, first used because the vehicle being 
one-seated suggested the idea of selfishness and sulki- 
ness. Numerous other examples have already been 
given under the discussion of differentiation by metaphor. 
The main reason why slang words do not now make 
their way into good use so freely as they did formerly, 
is that our standards and conventions in language have 
become more fixed. We are inclined to estimate lan- 
guage not immediately from the point of view of its 
power and value in the expression of thought and feel- 
ing, as was the tendency in Shakspere's day, but from 
the point of view of its agreement or disagreement with 
the preceding traditional use of the language. In what 
we call the lower forms of society, however, for ex- 
ample, among street Arabs and gamins, such a thing 
as the idea of slang does not exist. To another person 
their speech may be very slangy, because it is contrary 
to the customs and traditions which he has accepted as 
established and correct. But to the boy or man on the 
street all language is used merely for the sake of ex- 
pression ; to him that is its only purpose and justifica- 
tion, and he consequently feels free to create and 
change as much as he pleases. In other words, lan- 
guage is more likely to be a natural, growing, develop- 
ing medium of communication among the untrained 
and unconventional than it is among the educated and 
conventional. 

(3) Slang as cant phraseology. Every profession, or 
every group of people engaged in the same activity, tends 
to develop a vocabulary peculiar to itself, which we may 
call a class, or technical, or cant vocabulary. It is the 



208 MODERN ENGLISH 

professional jargon of the respective groups of people. 
Thus the stock markets have invented a great number 
of professional words and phrases, such as bull and bear ; 
one is long on a certain stock when one is well provided 
with it, and short on it when one is inadequately pro- 
vided ; a deal by which one person is shut out of a cer- 
tain combination is known as a freeze out; and so with 
many other words and phrases. Another group of per- 
sons which has developed a very rich cant slang vocabu- 
lary is the college and school group. The college boy 
flunks on examination, or makes a fluke of a recitation; 
when he or his professor talks vaguely and beside the 
point, he drools, and so on indefinitely. Still other 
groups which make frequent use of cant terms are 
sportsmen of various kinds, the race-track, the ken- 
nel, the base-ball and foot-ball field, for example, each 
having its own special vocabulary ; and perhaps more 
than any other, the floating population of crooks and 
tramps. In this last group we need only mention such 
words as crook, hobo, bum, booze, etc., to suggest hosts 
of others. It should be noted that the cant vocabulary 
of one group is largely unintelligible to another group, 
the cant terms of the stock-markets being understood 
only by those in that business. It is obvious that 
the cant terms of a profession or of any group of people 
may cease to have slang value to the people who habitu- 
ally use them, becoming to them merely the literal 
names for the activities of their profession and thus a 
part of their technical vocabulary. Words of this sort, 
however, seldom pass beyond the limits of their group 
into general use. 

(4) Slang as picturesque sound. Often a slang word 



ENGLISH WORDS 209 

does not apparently have any clear logical meaning, but 
comes into use merely because its sound is amusing or 
suggestive of some idea. Such a word is the now cur- 
rent skidoo, the present-day equivalent of the older ske- 
daddle. Similar words are mosey, meaning to walk 
slowly and aimlessly ; snide meaning cunning, tricky ; 
biff, a blow ; plunk, first a silver dollar, perhaps from the 
sound of it as it falls on a counter, then merely dollar ; 
flub or chump, a more or less heavy, stupid person. In 
this class might be included language abbreviations, like 
prof, doc, exam, for professor, doctor, examination; phiz 
for physiognomy; and such language mutilations as 
bizny for business, picture-askew for picturesque, etc. 
Many slang words seem to be suggested by the high- 
sounding Latin vocabulary, such as bogus; spondulix ; 
slantendicularly ; catawamus ; bamboozle ; cahoots ; di- 
does ; hocus pocus, etc. Occasionally an actual Latin 
phrase, for example, non compos mentis, or simply non 
compos, is used as a slang expression by persons who 
know nothing of the origin of the phrase. 

10. Attitude towards Slang. Since slang is not an 
abnormal or diseased growth in language, but arises in 
the language just as other words arise, there is no reason 
why such words in themselves should be condemned. 
Intrinsically they are not bad, but rather good, in so far 
as they show activity of mind and a desire to be vigor- 
ously expressive on the part of the speaker. But since 
from the circumstances of their development and use, 
slang words carry with them a certain individual color, 
flavor, or tone, whatever we may wish to call it, that gives 
them a marked distinctive value, the use of them should 
be determined by their appropriateness to the mood or 

14 



210 MODERN ENGLISH 

thought which we wish to express. Perhaps we should 
make a distinction between speaking and writing, allow- 
ing ourselves somewhat more liberty in speaking than in 
writing, in neither instance, however, completely sup- 
pressing the creative instinct in language. In answer to 
the frequent charge that " Slang is vulgar," we may say 
that slang in itself is no more vulgar than other words 
of the language, that there is nothing inherently vulgar 
in a slang word. A word is vulgar only when the idea 
which it expresses or connotes is vulgar, and this is true 
of other words as well as slang. But that slang words 
often carry with them by suggestion or connotation ideas 
or shades of thought that may fairly be called vulgar, or 
at least undignified, cannot be denied. The reason for 
this is that the slang words often come from the lan- 
guage of a grade or of classes of society the activities of 
which as a whole are looked upon as vulgar or undigni- 
fied. On the other hand certain slang words may carry 
with them exactly the opposite connotation when they 
are the cant terms (such words as smart set, swagger, 
swell, etc.) current among people who are regarded, or 
who regard themselves, as leaders in matters of fashion 
and conventional manners. A second statement that 
" Slang limits vocabulary " might be accepted if it were 
true that vocabulary limits thought. But the true state- 
ment is that vocabulary is the expression, the measure 
of thought, and its extent and character is determined 
by the extent and variety of thought itself. To say that 
slang limits vocabulary is literally to say that vocabulary 
limits vocabulary. That loose and lazy thinkers are in- 
clined to use one word to express many shades of thought 
is true not only in the use of slang words, but of many 



ENGLISH WORDS 211 

other words of the language. 1 It may be said in general, 
however, that the continual use of slang, since much of 
its effect depends upon a kind of temporary conventional 
smartness, is a fair indication of a cheap and shallow 
mind. The slang habit is vicious because it cheapens 
by constant use an activity of language which is needed, 
but which, to produce its proper effect, must be employed 
only when it is needed. Slang is nearly always con- 
scious in its origin and in its use. It is almost always 
more expressive than the situation demands. It is in- 
deed a kind of hyperesthesia in the use of language. It 
differs thus from idiom, which is normally expressive. 
" To laugh in your sleeve" is idiom because it arises out 
of a natural situation : it is a metaphor derived from the 
picture of one raising his sleeve to his face to hide a 
smile, a metaphor which arose naturally enough in early 
periods when sleeves were long and flowing; but "to 
talk through your hat " is slang, not only because it is 
new, but also because it is a grotesque exaggeration of 
the truth. 

11. Word Borrowing in English. The background 
and the basis of the English vocabulary is of course 
Teutonic or Germanic, by inheritance, just as its inflec- 
tional and general grammatical systems are. From the 
earliest historical times, however, this Teutonic base has 
been enriched by the borrowing of words from other lan- 
guages, sometimes more rapidly and abundantly than at 
others, dependent upon the extent to which the English, 

1 Cf . the various loose meanings of the word Jix, such as to arrange, to 
mend, to settle or plant firmly, and even to punish, as in "111 fix him." 
The corrective of this fault is the determination and definition of the 
thought so clearly that more discriminating terms must be used to express 
it adequately. 



212 MODERN ENGLISH 

or their Anglian, Jutish, and. Saxon ancestors, were 
brought into contact with other peoples. 

The first historic borrowings which we can clearly 
trace are borrowings from Latin while the Angles, Jutes, 
and Saxons were still resident on the Continent. 
Words of this sort are the common possession of a 
number of Germanic languages. Examples are wine, 
from Old English win, Latin vinum ; monger (as in fish- 
monger), Old English manger e, Latin mango, to buy or 
sell ; found, Old English pund, Latin pondo ; wall, Old 
English weall, Latin vallum ; street, Old English street, 
Latin strata {via) ; and a few others. Not many words 
were taken over from the Latin at this early period, 
those that were borrowed being chiefly commercial terms, 
like monger, pound, etc., and military terms like wall 
and street, the Roman streets or roads being built prim- 
arily to facilitate the passage of troops from one part 
of the Empire to another. 

12. Celtic Borrowings. After the migration to 
England of those Continental tribes which later consti- 
tuted the Anglo-Saxon people, the language and the 
people with which they were first brought into contact 
and from which we should expect them to borrow words 
were the native Celtic language and the Celts. The re- 
lation of the Celts to the Anglo-Saxons was that of a 
subdued race to its conquerors, 1 and we should hardly 
expect, therefore, that the Anglo-Saxons would borrow 
very abundantly from the Celts. The tendency would be 
in the other direction, for the Celts, the weaker and less 

1 Cf. Old English wielen, " slave-woman," the feminine form of the 
name Wealh, " Welsh," by which the Anglo-Saxons named their Celtic 
servants. 



ENGLISH WORDS 213 

influential people, to give up their language for Old 
English. The Anglo-Saxon would feel neither neces- 
sity nor inclination to borrow from the Celt. And in 
fact, so far as we are able to judge now from the Celtic 
words used in the literature of the earlier periods that 
has been preserved, the influence of the Celts upon the 
Anglo-Saxons was very slight. Scholars have been able 
to find less than a score of words in the English language 
before the eleventh century which can be said with any 
degree of probability to have been derived from the 
Celtic. Some of these, for example the word dry in Old 
English, meaning " magician," and cognate with the first 
syllable of druid, have disappeared from later English. 
Others, for example mattock, which it was formerly sup- 
posed were borrowed from Celtic, have been shown to be 
Celtic borrowings from English. The words which we 
can be reasonably certain were borrowed by Old English 
from Celtic and which are still found in Modern English, 
are very few in number ; among them the following are 
the most probable : brock (badger) ; down (a hill) ; 
slough. To find any extensive influence of Celtic on 
English we must turn to the proper names of the 
language, such as the names of rivers, mountains, dis- 
tricts, etc., many of which naturally retained their 
original Celtic names. This is especially true of regions 
like Devonshire and Cornwall which for a long time 
resisted the attacks of the Anglo-Saxons and thus re- 
mained largely Celtic after the rest of southern and east- 
ern England had been completely Teutonized. 1 

1 For the etymologies of the place names of England, see Taylor, 
Words and Places, London, 1893, and Names and their Histories, London, 
1896. 



214 MODERN ENGLISH 

It should be remembered, also, in estimating the Celtic 
element in English, that the small number of early 
Celtic words in English has been increased, tho not 
to any considerable extent, by later borrowings from 
Irish, as, for example, brogue, galore, shamrock, shillelagh 
spalpeen, Tory, usquebaugh, etc. ; from Scotch, in such 
words as clan, glen, kail, pibroch, plaid, slogan, whiskey, 
etc. ; and from Welsh in coracle, cromlech, flannel, and a 
few others. But the entire number of Celtic words in 
English is surprisingly small. 

13. Latin Borrowings of the First Period. After 
the settlement of the Anglo-Saxons in England and the 
establishment of their supremacy over the Celts, the 
first great event, important for the development of their 
civilization and language, was the introduction of Chris- 
tianity and of Roman civilization, by means of the 
Augustinian mission in the last decade of the sixth cen- 
tury. The Anglo-Saxons were thus brought into direct 
contact with a civilization that was higher than their 
own, and by the same principle which accounts for 
the slight influence of Celtic upon Old English, we 
should expect a strong influence of Latin upon Old 
English. There is abundant evidence to show that the 
influence of Latin was profound. The Roman mis- 
sionaries were not only preachers, they were also 
teachers. One of their first projects was the establish- 
ment of schools in which Anglo-Saxon children were to 
be educated for the priesthood. The teachers in these 
schools were at first naturally Romans, or at least not 
Anglo-Saxons ; but in the course of comparatively a 
short time persons of pure Anglo-Saxon birth attained 
distinction as teachers and scholars. Of these we may 



ENGLISH WORDS 215 

mention two, Aldhelm, born about 650 and dying in 709, 
a pupil of the school at Canterbury, who was the author 
of a number of Latin treatises which are still extant; 
and Alcuin, who lived from about 735 to 804, a pupil of 
the cathedral school established at York. Alcuin has 
been described as " the most learned man of his age," 1 
and when Charlemagne wished to establish schools at 
his oavii court, he invited Alcuin to become master of 
them, a post which he held from 782 to 790. Latin 
learning was also cultivated by other Anglo-Saxons, as, 
for example, the Venerable Bede (c. 673-735), the author 
of the Ecclesiastical History of the English People (His- 
toria Ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum) ; King Alfred (849- 
901), who translated many Latin works into English ; 
and ^Elfric (c. 955-1020), author of many treatises both 
in Latin and in English. A natural result of this famil- 
iarity with Latin was the incorporation of a consider- 
able number of Latin words into the English vocabulary. 
It has been estimated that before the year 1050 nearly 
four hundred words are found in extant Old English 
literature. 2 As we should expect, many of these words 
are of ecclesiastical character, the new religion and its 
organization naturally bringing with it many of its own 
words. Words of this sort which appear in the Old 
English period and have persisted in use to-day, are 
bishop, Lat. eplscopus ; apostle, Lat. apostolus; alms, 
Lat. eleemosyna (which in turn is of Greek origin) ; 
creed, Lat. credo ; candel, Lat. candela ; organ, Lat. 
organum; priest, Lat. presbyter. 

Another large group is made up of words which 

1 See Sandys, History of Classical Scholarship, Vol. I, p. 460. 

2 See Toller, Outlines of the History of the English Language, p. 79 ff. 



216 MODERN ENGLISH 

might be called scientific or learned words, as, for ex- 
ample, names of plants, as cedar, Lat. cedrus ; box (box- 
tree), Lat. buxus ; or of mathematical divisions of space 
and time, as calends, Lat. calendae ; mile, Lat. milia ; 
noon, Lat. nona (literally the ninth hour of the day) ; 
meter, Lat. metrum. The Modern English tile, which 
appears as Old English tigele, from Latin tegula, came 
into use in English when the object itself was intro- 
duced by the Latins. 

The number of words of familiar daily life which 
passed from the Latin into Old English was relatively 
small. Examples are such words as butter, Lat. buty- 
rum; cheese, Lat. caseus ; kitchen, Lat. coquina ; mill, 
Lat. molina ; cup, Lat. cuppa ; kettle, Lat. catillus. A 
number of these words were plainly taken over because 
of the superiority of the monastery cooks and cooking 
over the native, just as to-day English has a kind of 
kitchen-French which has come into the language in a 
similar way. 

On the whole, however, the influence of Latin upon 
English in this period was chiefly upon the learned lan- 
guage. But even here the influence was by no means 
revolutionary. A good many of the approximately four 
hundred words occurring in texts before 1050 are used 
merely as glosses, or are single occurrences obviously 
due to the immediate need of a translator to find a word 
to express some object or idea in his original. Old 
English, in the main, was very conservative in the mat- 
ter of borrowing words. Even when it came to the 
expression of the abstract ideas of Christianity or of 
philosophy, Anglo-Saxon authors endeavored to get 
along with their own native stock of words and usually 



ENGLISH WORDS 217 

succeeded remarkably well. For example, in King 
Alfred's translation of a philosophical work by the Latin 
writer Boethius, entitled De Consolatione Philosophiae, in 
a typical passage of about 660 words discussing the ab- 
stract question of the nature of God, only one Latin word, 
englas, Lat. angeli, " angels," occurs. There are fre- 
quent words, however, of abstract meaning, such as we 
usually express now by means of words of Latin origin. 
Examples are mildheort, literally " mild-heart," where we 
should now probably say merciful or gracious, both 
Latin words through the French; rummod, literally 
room-mood, our modern magnanimous ; gdstllce, literally 
ghost-like, that is, spiritual ; to-scead, an idea which we 
should now express by difference or discrimination; 
hwilwendlic, literally while (i. e., time), wend (turn), and 
the adjective suffix lie, the whole meaning temporal. 
And so with many other words it could be shown that 
where Modern English uses a word of Latin origin, Old 
English uses its own native words. In this respect 
Old English consequently resembles modern German 
more nearly than it does Modern English, the present 
tendency in English being to express new ideas, espe- 
cially of a somewhat abstract character, by means of 
words of Latin origin, whereas modern German gener- 
ally uses native words for this purpose. 

14. Borrowings from Scandinavian. After their 
settlement in England the Anglo-Saxons came into re- 
newed contact with the Scandinavians of the Continent, 
the Danes, Northmen or Norse, and Swedes, at the 
beginning of the Scandinavian invasions towards the 
close of the eighth century. These invasions, which at 
first were merely predatory, soon became wars of actual 



218 MODERN ENGLISH 

conquest and settlement. By the heroic efforts of Al- 
fred and his successors the Danes were kept out of 
Wessex for a time, but the other parts of England, es- 
pecially the northern, soon succumbed to them, and with 
the conquest of Cnut, in 1016, the whole of England 
passed under Danish control, and a Danish king ruled 
at the same time both Denmark and England. The 
Danish conquerors of England readily amalgamated with 
the native Anglo-Saxon population. In this instance the 
Anglo-Saxon civilization, having passed through several 
centuries of peaceful development, was the higher one, 
and the Danes consequently tended to give up their 
language for the English language. The two languages, 
however, were much alike, and it is often difficult to 
tell when a word is pure Old English and when it is of 
Scandinavian origin. Many words, so far as their form 
goes, such common words, for example, as man, wife, 
father, mother, folk, house, etc., might as well be of Scan- 
dinavian as of Old English origin, because they are the 
same in both languages. 1 In some cases, however, ideas 
or objects of Scandinavian origin have left their impress 
plainly upon the names which were borrowed to desig- 
nate them. A number of words were taken over by the 
Anglo-Saxons which have not persisted in the language, 
as, for example, words connected with the sea, bar da, 
cnear, sceg^>, different kinds of ships ; lid, " a fleet " ; ha, 
" rowlock," etc. The Scandinavians appear also to have 
been active legal organizers, and a number of their law 
terms passed over to Old English, such as the word law 
itself; by-law (for the etymology of by-, see above, p. 
198); thrall, u slave " ; the verb crave ; the second ele- 

1 See Jespersen, Growth and Structure of the English Language, p. 65. 



ENGLISH WORDS 219 

ment in hus-band; and others. Other Scandinavian words 
in English are the nouns sky, skull, skin, skill, haven ; the 
adjectives meek, loiv, scant, loose, odd, wrong, ill, ugly, 
rotten, happy, seemly ; the verbs thrive, die, cast, hit, 
take, call, scare, scrape, bask, droivn, ransack, gape ; 
probably the pronouns they, their, them ; and the prepo- 
sitions fro (to and fro) and till. 

These words it will be observed are mostly ordinary 
words of common daily intercourse, and in this respect 
they differ widely from the Latin words that were taken 
over in the Old English period. Erom the nature of these 
Scandinavian borrowings we may infer that the Scan- 
dinavians and Anglo-Saxons lived together on a plane of 
equality; their relation to each other was not that of 
learned people to an ignorant, like the Latin to the Anglo- 
Saxon, or of an aristocratic ruling class to a conquered 
and ignoble group of subjects, like the Anglo-Saxons to 
the Celts. Anglo-Saxons and Scandinavians, moreover, 
lived together probably without much realization of a 
difference of nationality. This being the case, we might 
expect that the number of Anglo-Saxon borrowings from 
the Scandinavians would be much greater than it is. 
But the very similarity of the two languages and of the 
two peoples probably tended to prevent this. The Scan- 
dinavians apparently gave up their language without 
much struggle, and the Anglo-Saxons felt little need of 
borrowing words from their Teutonic kinsmen, having 
already an equivalent vocabulary in their own language. 

15. Borrowings from the French in the Middle 
English Period. The words which English borrowed 
from other languages, Celtic, Latin, and Scandinavian, 
before the period of French influence, were comparatively 



220 MODERN ENGLISH 

few in number. They were not of sufficient importance 
to change in any considerable degree the character of the 
language, or even to add much to its resources. English 
remained throughout a unilingual tongue, a language 
made up largely, or almost exclusively, of words of the 
same linguistic stock. As a result, however, of the 
French influence upon English, we have the introduction 
of a large number of words of French origin, so large 
a number that they modify the general character and 
tone of the language. So numerous and important are 
these French innovations that English changes from a 
unilingual to a bilingual tongue. The basis of the 
language remained English, as it always has through all 
stages of its history, but the accretions to this original 
English stock were of such a character as to make Eng- 
lish sensitive to two language traditions, one Teutonic 
and the other Romance. This bilingual character of the 
language of the Middle English period has been trans- 
mitted to, and augmented by, later periods of English, so 
that to-day our language is made up of two historically 
clearly distinguishable, tho in practice closely interwoven 
strands, the Romance or Latin, and the English or 
Teutonic, strands. 

The causes which brought about the introduction of 
French words into Middle English were partly political, 
but mainly social. The relations between England and 
France first became politically significant in the time of 
Edward the Confessor, who was king of England from 
1043 to 1066. Edward had spent the early years of his 
life in Normandy in France, and there had acquired 
French sympathies and French tastes. When he be- 
came king, these sympathies and tastes were naturally 



ENGLISH WORDS 221 

brought over by him to his English court. Moreover, 
Edward rilled high political and ecclestiastical offices in 
England with Normans, in the face of the disapproval of 
the English, who finally rose up in rebellion in 1052 and 
drove these French favorites from the country. On the 
death of Edward, the English chose Harold, son of Earl 
Godwin, a very powerful English nobleman, as their 
king. But a cousin of Edward's, William, Duke of 
Normandy, made claim to the English throne on the 
basis of some promises alleged to have been given him 
by Edward, and in support of his claims he appeared on 
English soil with an army at his back, fought and 
defeated Harold at the famous battle of Hastings, on 
October 14, 1066, and thus a duke of Normandy became 
the king of England and the English people. 

The effect of the Norman Conquest upon English 
institutions and life in general was profound and wide- 
reaching. In the first place, William the Conqueror was 
a strong and a wise executive. He became the real 
ruler of the country, he introduced a system of govern- 
ment, and saw to it that it was carried out. The persons 
to whom offices of trust were assigned were at first 
naturally his own Norman followers, and the language 
of the court and the higher official life was of course 
Norman French. But secondly, and, so far as the his- 
tory of the language is concerned, more importantly, the 
Norman Conquest was significant because it changed 
England from an insular, self-dependent country to one 
with interests beyond itself. Through the Norman 
Conquest England became more fully acquainted with 
continental customs and habits of life, with French 
learning and with French literature, than it had been 



222 MODERN ENGLISH 

before. What all this meant to England can hardly be 
overestimated; for the French of the eleventh and 
twelfth centuries were undoubtedly the most highly 
civilized nation of Europe, and of this civilization the 
English thus became partakers and sharers. 

There is a frequent misapprehension which needs to 
be corrected, concerning the attitude which William the 
Conqueror assumed towards the English language. It 
is often assumed that William's attitude towards English 
was hostile, that he endeavored to crush it out and to 
substitute Norman French in its place, just as the Czar 
of Russia has recently attempted forcibly to compel the 
Finns to give up their native language and use Russian. 
The investigations of historians 1 have shown, however, 
that this was not William's purpose, either with respect 
to the English language or with respect to the political 
institutions of the English people. William was too 
wise a statesman not to make use of everything that 
would help him, and instead of being hostile to the 
English language and English customs, the indications 
are that he rather strove to use them in the effective 
organization of his kingdom. English was never, there- 
fore, a forbidden language, tho naturally it was re- 
garded for a long time as an ignoble language. The 
speech of the court and the higher official life was 
French, and Englishmen who sought favor at court of 
course learned French. There were thus two strata in 
the social body, each with its own language. English 
continued to be spoken uninterruptedly after the Con- 

1 See especially Freeman, The Norman Conquest ; and the same author's 
essay, " The English People in their Three Homes," in Some Impressions of 
the United States. 



ENGLISH WORDS 223 

quest, but it tended to become what we should now call 
the language of the ignorant and uncultivated ; it per- 
sisted therefore as a popular dialect. French, on the 
other hand, became the accepted speech of the higher 
political and social life. 

The number of Normans in England, as compared 
with the number of Englishmen, must always have been 
small. There were several reasons, however, why these 
Normans were not immediately absorbed by the more 
numerous English. In the first place, a higher civiliza- 
tion, tho confined to relatively few people, does not 
readily yield to lower influences ; it is conservative and 
strives to be self -perpetuating. Second, French culture 
in England was continually refreshed by communication 
with the Continent. William was king of England, but 
also duke of Normandy, and many of his nobles who 
held possessions in England also had important relations 
with France. There was thus a continual passing back 
and forth of the official society between England and 
Normandy. In the meantime, however, those French- 
men whose possessions and interests were all in England 
would be compelled in self-defense to learn English. 
Their workmen and their overseers, the people upon 
whom all the practical affairs of daily life depended, 
would be English ; and as these English would have 
little opportunity to learn French, however great their 
inclination, the only thing for the landlords to do was to 
learn English. In the year 1204 an event happened 
which made communication between French and English 
in England more than ever frequent and necessary. 
This was the loss of the province of Normandy in the 
reign of King John, and the consequent loss of their 



224 MODERN ENGLISH 

French possessions by the Norman nobles in England. 
From this time on English continued to gain as the 
national speech of the country. French remained as 
the cultivated speech of the higher social classes, but 
it came to be more and more felt as an accomplishment, 
an artificial, aristocratic class language, as distinguished 
from the general, national language of the people. As 
soon as this had come to pass, French as a spoken 
language in England was doomed. It might continue to 
be used as the language of polite conversation, to some 
extent as the language of literature and scholarship ; 
but the language which does not send its roots down 
into the actual, every-day life of a people is condemned 
to sterility and death. French managed to maintain it- 
self as a cultivated language far into the fourteenth 
century. Robert of Gloucester, writing about 1300, 
speaks of English as the language of " lowe men," but of 
French as the language of " heie men," by " high men " 
probably meaning men of high official rank. The Cursor 
Mundi, a long poem written in the north of England 
in the first quarter of the fourteenth century, defends 
English on patriotic grounds as the right language for 
Englishmen to use. Ralph Higden, in a Latin historical 
work called the Polychronicon, written near the middle of 
the century, says that children in school were compelled 
to leave their own language (showing that English was 
the native language of school children in his day) and 
to construe their lessons in French, a state of affairs 
which Higden regards with disfavor. Higden also says 
that gentlemen's children are taught French from the 
time that they are rocked in the cradle. The Polychroni- 
con was translated into English by John Trevisa about 



ENGLISH WORDS 225 

the year 1385, and in his translation Trevisa comments on 
Higden's statement, observing that in his day matters 
had changed somewhat, that children now studied their 
lessons in English; whereby, says Trevisa, they have 
this advantage, that they learn their lessons more quickly, 
but this disadvantage, that they know no more French 
than their left heels. In the meantime, in the year 1362, 
it had been ordered that pleadings in the law courts 
should be in English and not in French. By the end 
of the fourteenth century it was for once and all de- 
termined that English was to be the language of Eng- 
land. This final triumph of English is indicated most 
forcibly by the choice of English for literary purposes by 
Chaucer. Familiar as he was with French, Chaucer could 
have written in that language if he had so desired. But 
his observation had convinced him that French was a 
decaying and passing language in England, that the 
real, vital language of the country was English, and that 
any literature which should express English character 
and life must be written in the English language. 
Chaucer, therefore, while his example contributed to 
raise English in the respect of the people, did not by his 
single effort make English a language fit for literature. 
It had become so before Chaucer wrote, and what the 
poet did was to see his opportunity and use it. In his 
choice of English we have the final victory of English 
over French, the language of the people against the 
language of the higher life, of the court, of polite con- 
versation, and of literature. 

16. Chronology of French Words in English. 
When we come to consider the question of the times at 
which French words were taken over into English, we are 

15 



226 MODERN ENGLISH 

met by an interesting condition of affairs. As we have 
already seen, intimate relations between France and Eng- 
land began in the time of Edward the Confessor, contin- 
uing after the Conquest in a much more influential way 
to the time of the loss of Normandy in 1204. Even 
after the loss of Normandy, however, French continued 
to be used in England as a cultivated or polite language, 
and it was only at the beginning of the fourteenth cen- 
tury that English began to take the place of French, a 
tendency that became complete at the end of the cen- 
tury. Now it is remarkable that it is not until we come 
to English works written near the beginning of the four- 
teenth century that we find French words abundantly 
used. In the Ormulum, for example, a poem of about 
ten thousand long lines, written near the year 1200, only 
twenty-three words of French origin are used. 1 The 
Brut of Layamon, a poem of more than 56,000 short 
lines, written early in the thirteenth century, contains 
only 150 words of French origin. 2 The proportion varies 
slightly with different writers, other works contemporary 
with the Ormulum and the Brut showing some a larger 
and others a smaller relative number of French words. 
But the number for two centuries after the Conquest is 
never very large. Gradually, however, the use of French 
words in Middle English texts increases until it reaches 
its highest point between 1300 and 1400, or more exactly 
between 1350 and 1400, just the period in which French 
was losing ground as a national language and English 
was gaining ground. How is this to be explained? 
First of all, by the fact that when the higher classes, the 

1 A list of them is given by Kluge, Englische Studien, XXII, 179 ff. 

2 For a list of them, see Monroe, in Modern Philology, IV, 559 ff . 



ENGLISH WORDS 227 

speech of which is naturally reflected in the literature of 
the period, took to speaking English, a language for 
which they had hitherto had more or less contempt, they 
naturally carried over into English many words from 
their French. Their English was a sort of Gallicized 
English, improved and polished, as they probably 
thought, by being interlarded with French words. 
The very tendency, therefore, which brought about the 
elevation of English resulted also in the introduction of 
numerous French words into English. Moreover, we 
need not suppose that the English themselves of the 
middle and lower classes were averse to borrowing 
French words in this period. French was recognized as 
a polite language, the language of culture, education, and 
travel, especially as the language of literature, and the 
occasional use of a French word conferred a touch of 
distinction upon the person who used it, just as to-day 
we have a sort of " society French," such words as debu- 
tante, fiancee, foyer ; etc., and a sort of literary or esthetic 
French, words like genre, denouement, technique, which 
persons of a somewhat unripe culture are fond of using. 
The French which was thus cultivated at the end of 
the fourteenth century was no longer the old Anglo- 
Norman French of the original conquerors of England. 
That had in the course of time grown old-fashioned, 
tho from this Anglo-Norman French are of course de- 
rived most French words taken into English before 1350. 
The new and the fashionable French which was culti- 
vated in the last half of the century was Central French, 
the dialect of Paris, the chief city of the French, and the 
dialect also in which the great body of French literature 
was written. We thus see that the Conquest itself and 



228 MODERN ENGLISH 

its immediate political results were less influential in 
bringing about the introduction of French words into 
English than these later social causes. Indeed the in- 
fluence of French upon the English vocabulary did not 
become pronounced until the Conquest had become 
practically forgotten and the racial distinction between 
Norman and English obliterated. The real explanation 
of the influence of French upon English is to be found 
where the influence of one language upon another is 
almost always to be found, in the give and take of the 
members of one social group upon another in the daily 
concerns of life. 

17. Kinds of Words Borrowed from French. 
In general, words of all kinds, of all parts of speech, and 
from all walks of life were taken over into English, 
both from Anglo-Norman and from Central French, 
during the Middle English period. As a result of this 
borrowing, many English words were lost, French words 
like mercy, charity, power, soldier, peace, etc., taking the 
place of words which in the Old English period were 
drawn from the Teutonic stock. Or it often happened 
that an Old English word was preserved beside a French 
word of similar content, the Old English word, however, 
generally taking on a somewhat less dignified meaning 
than the French word, as, for example, French chair 
beside English stool ; French city beside English town ; 
French labor beside English work. Sir Walter Scott, in 
Ivanhoe, has called attention to pairs of words of this 
sort, such as French beef, mutton, veal, and pork, as com- 
pared with English ox, sheep, calf, and swine. He draws 
the inference that the ox and the other animals, so long 
as they were only objects of care and expense, were the 



ENGLISH WORDS 229 

concern of the humble Saxons, but when they were 
dressed for the table and were ready to be enjoyed, then 
they passed into the possession of the Normans and took 
the French names, such as beef, etc. But there is no 
reason to suppose that the Saxons were so poverty- 
stricken and oppressed as not to be able to eat beef, 
mutton, or pork. The French names for the dressed 
meats were taken over because they were the polite 
names, and the Saxon when he had prepared his ox or 
his sheep for the table would himself be pleased to call 
it beef and mutton. 

It would be difficult to go through the whole list of 
borrowed words and classify them exactly, so as to show 
just what ideas the language tended to express in French 
to the exclusion of English. As has already been stated, 
words of all kinds, the most simple as well as the most 
polite, were taken over, many of them maintaining only 
a temporary place in the language, but most of them 
persisting to the present day. These words we no 
longer feel as French in origin, and we use them in the 
same way as we use all other words of the language. 
They have become indeed an essential and inseparable 
part of the language, and any attempt to distinguish and 
to discriminate against words of French origin of this 
period is artificial and vain. As illustrations of short 
and simple words of French origin borrowed in the 
Middle English period, we may cite the following : able, 
age, air, boil, card, chair, course, cry, debt, doubt, ease, 
engine, face, flower, fruit, hasty, hour, hulk, jolly, move, 
pass, oust, peck, river, soil, table, use, etc. These simple 
words, the number of which could be increased indefi- 
nitely, are exactly on the same plane as the popular words 



230 MODERN ENGLISH 

of Scandinavian origin cited above, and native words 
of Teutonic origin. They are completely amalgamated 
with the rest of the language, and have become thus to 
all intents and purposes identical with the popular native 
element. It is, therefore, not this part of the borrowed 
French strand in the English vocabulary that is most 
characteristic, so far at least as the style of English is 
concerned, of the influence of French upon English. 

Besides these simple, commonplace words there is 
another large group of words of French origin which is 
specially significant of the relations which existed be- 
tween French and English in this period, a group of 
words which clearly reflects the attitude of mind of the 
English of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries both 
towards their own aud towards the French language. 
This difference is well illustrated by the lines in 
Chaucer's Prolog to The Canterbury Tales, in which he 
describes the virtues practised by the knight : 

he lovede chivalrye, 
Trouthe and honour, fredom and curteisye. 1 

Of these five nouns, the second and the fourth are Eng- 
lish words, the first, the third, and the fifth are French. 
The English words, truth and freedom, are the names of 
two simple manly virtues, fundamental virtues in Eng- 
lish character. The French words, chivalry, honor, and 
courtesy, name virtues of a different kind, courtly vir- 
tues, such as only those who are bred under certain con- 
ditions can know and practice. Honor and courtes}^ are 
determined by a code of conduct, a code which has been 
made elastic enough to permit a gambling debt being 

i LI. 45, 46. 



ENGLISH WORDS 231 

called a "debt of honor." But truth and freedom are 
words which need no definition, because they have no 
doubtful meaning ; they are not names for varying rules 
of conduct, but are names for permanent essential traits 
of character. It would be easy of course to make too 
much of this distinction, especially if we should attempt 
to show that French words, as is sometimes supposed, 
were generally borrowed to designate the shallower and 
more artificial ideas and sentiments. A truer statement 
would be that the French element often has the qualities 
of courtliness and grace, these words themselves, courtli- 
ness and grace, being French words, and the ideas for 
which they stand being largely French ideas. To the 
French the Middle English period was indebted for those 
standards of conduct which we usually group under the 
broad head of chivalry. Anglo-Saxon society may have 
been simple, earnest, and sincere, but it can hardly be 
said to have been light or graceful. The characteristics 
of charm and fancy, of polish and lightness, do not ap- 
pear prominently in English literature, and probably did 
not exist in any considerable extent in English life, until 
after the period of French influence. It is the polite 
part of the English vocabulary, taken over from French 
at this time, that constitutes the striking difference 
between the language of the Middle English and the 
Old English period. This is illustrated by borrowed 
words which have to do with eating and table-manners, 
as, for example, the words dine, dinner, supper, table 
(for Old English board), plate, napkin, fork, pasty, feast, 
besides many names of edibles, of kitchen utensils, and 
of ways of preparing food, such as roast, broil, boil, and 
others. Costume and dress also changed and became 



232 MODERN ENGLISH 

much more elaborate in the Middle English period, 
French words here again often taking the place of Eng- 
lish ones. Examples are coat, cloak, gown, boot, cap, 
etc., also many names of cloths. Words of address 
were taken from the French, such as sir, madam, master, 
mistress, as well as many from the higher titles, like 
prince, duke, duchess, marquis, baron, captain, sergeant, 
colonel, officer, etc. Names of relationship, except the 
immediate relationships of the family, were expressed by 
French words, as uncle, aunt, nephew, niece, and cousin ; 
hut father, brother, mother, sister remained English. Ac- 
complishments were usually French, both in word and 
fact. Four of the six talents mentioned by Chaucer in 
the following couplet descriptive of the gallant Squire 
in The Canterbury Tales, require French words to name 
them: 

He koude songes make and wel endite, 

Juste and eek daunce and weel purtreye and write. 1 

Many of the terms of sport, especially hawking and hunt- 
ing, were taken from the French, and naturally also a 
great many words connected with the higher official life, 
as, for example, crown, state, realm, royal, country, nation, 
power ) etc. ; words connected with war and military 
affairs in general, as arms, peace, battle, armor, banner, 
siege, and a great many others ; words pertaining to the 
law courts and the administration of justice, as, for ex- 
ample, judge, justice, court, suit, plea, plead, etc. ; numer- 
ous words of ecclesiastical meaning, as service, savior, 
relic, cloister, preach, prayer, clergy, clerk, etc. But 
most important of all, perhaps, is the long list of words 

1 Prolog, 11. 95, 96. Endite = compose ; juste = joust ; eek = also. 



ENGLISH WORDS 233 

of more or less abstract value denoting chivalric ideas or 
matters of general conduct. The words honor and cour- 
tesy have already been cited from Chaucer. To them 
should be added the word villainy, in Chaucer's well- 
known line descriptive of the Knight in the Prolog to 
The Canterbury Tales : 

He nevere yet no vileynye ne sayde. 

The word means in Chaucer not quite what it does in 
Modern English, in the earlier sense signifying any con- 
duct not befitting a gentleman. Other words of this 
kind are duty, fame, virtue, gentle, valor, chivalry, cour- 
age, liege, degree, rank, standard, noble, grace, favor, 
simple, pleasant, agreeable, amiable, manner, dignity, rev- 
erence, piteous, dainty, dalliaunce, familiar, vaunt, adven- 
ture, coward, charm, chastity, beauty, benign, oblige, fault, 
majesty. 

It is a significant fact that it would be extremely diffi- 
cult to find an Old English equivalent to many of these 
words, the reason being that the exact shade of thought 
or feeling expressed by the French words was not a part 
of Anglo-Saxon experience. The life of the English 
people in the fourteenth century was much richer and 
more varied than it had been in the ninth or tenth centu- 
ries, and this growth in richness and variety, largely due 
as it, was to their contact with French life and civiliza- 
tion, is also largely expressed in words of French origin. 

18. Renascence Borrowings in English. The bor- 
rowing of French words, which has been described in the 
foregoing paragraphs, continued with but little diminu- 
tion down through the fifteenth century. Towards the 
end of this century the tendency to import words of both 



234 MODERN ENGLISH 

French and Latin origin was greatly strengthened by the 
general drift of the Renascence movement, that revival of 
learning and of interest in literature, both classical Latin 
and Greek and English vernacular, which, in its results 
upon language, was hardly less important than the period 
of French influence of which we have just spoken. The 
effect of the Renascence upon English is interesting and 
remarkable also because it was almost altogether the 
result of conscious effort. In preceding periods, any 
changes which affected the language took place largely 
without the conscious knowledge of the people who 
spoke the language. Words were borrowed from Scan- 
dinavian or French because it was convenient to have 
the Scandinavian or French words. But there was no 
avowed theory that it would be a good thing to add to 
the English vocabulary by borrowing from these lan- 
guages, words being taken as the need for them arose in 
the social intercourse of daily life. In the Renascence 
period, however, there arose a perfectly conscious move- 
ment, on the part of scholars and authors, to extend the 
limits of the English vocabulary by direct borrowing 
from other languages. This was quite in keeping with 
the general spirit of the Renascence, one of its most 
characteristic aspects being a deep and general interest in 
questions of language. From their study of the classical 
authors, the Renascence scholars were naturally led to 
the consideration of the matter of style in literature, the 
ability of a language to express all the various shades of 
thought and feeling of the human mind and heart. The 
perfect models of style they thought were to be found in 
such writers as Cicero and Vergil, and tho a modern 
vernacular such as English could never hope to rival the 



ENGLISH WORDS 235 

classical languages, these latter were nevertheless the 
ideals towards which the modern languages were to strive. 
A modern language could not be as good as Latin, but it 
ought to strive to be as like as possible to Latin. There 
arose thus the idea of M improving " the language, of 
" augmenting " it, of making it richer and fuller, and 
more capable of expressing what the Latin language 
could express so well. The desire to translate the 
monuments of classical literature into English also en- 
couraged the belief that English should be improved, 
for obviously there could be no adequate translation 
into English until that language should be at least 
approximately as expressive as the language from which 
translation was to be made. The great endeavor, there- 
fore, of the Renascence reformers was to enrich the vo- 
cabulary and to make the language more expressive. 
Their ideal was one of art, and they cultivated language 
mainly as a medium of artistic, literary expression. 

As is true of all reform movements, the positive or 
radical party is sure to beget a reactionary or conserv- 
ative party ; and so in this movement also the enrichers 
or improvers had to contend with the opposition of the 
conservatives, who maintained that English should not 
borrow words from other languages, but should try to 
develop her own native resources. The conservatives 
contended that if English needed new words they should 
be taken from the earlier periods of her own language, 
rather than from foreign languages. Both of these bodies 
of theorists in the end helped towards the enrichment 
of the language, the one by external borrowing and 
imitation, the other by internal development. 

The Renascence in England is characterized by two 



236 MODERN ENGLISH 

events, both of them of the greatest importance in 
the history of the language. The first of these is the 
revival of learning, meaning thereby the study of Greek 
and Latin literature; the second is the introduction of 
printing. There was very little knowledge of Greek 
in England during the Old and the Middle Eng- 
lish periods. The first Englishman to acquire profi- 
ciency in Greek in the Renascence period was William 
Tilly of Selling, near Canterbury, a Benedictine monk, 
who died in 1494. Others who succeeded him were his 
nephew, Thomas Linacre (1460-1524), William Grocyn 
(1446-1519), and William Latimer (d. 1545). Sir 
Thomas More (1480-1535) was also a student of Greek, 
and the great Dutch scholar, Erasmus, lived for several 
years in England, and gave instruction in Greek at the 
University of Cambridge. To these names may also be 
added that of William Lily, first High-Master of St. 
Paul's School in London, and author of the Latin gram- 
mar which Shakspere, as well as most of his contempo- 
raries, used as a school-boy. The direct influence of 
Greek upon English in the Renascence period was, 
however, very slight as compared with the influence of 
Latin and French. The study and the knowledge of 
Greek were more important as expressive of a deep and 
enthusiastic interest in language merely as language, 
rather than as affecting directly the feeling for, and the 
use of, the English language. 

The introduction of printing into England was due 
to William Caxton, an Englishman born in Kent about 
1415. He lived on the Continent a number of years, 
and during his residence in the Low Countries learned 
the printer's trade. On his return to England he set up 



EXGLISH WORDS 237 

a press of his own, and on November 18, 1477, the first 
dated book printed in England issued from his press. 
His work was very favorably received by the nobility 
in England, and thereafter Caxton's press was kept busy. 
To find material for publication, he himself became a 
translator. His first translation was a summary of the 
stories centering about the Trojan war, called Recuyell 
of the History es of Troy ; other translations which he 
made were of Reynard the Fox ; Jacobus a Voragine's 
Golden Legend ; a modernization of Trevisa's English 
version of Higden's Polyehronicon ; a form of the story 
of the ^Eneid called Eneydos ; and many others. 

As author and translator Caxton was deeply impressed 
by the beauty and expressiveness of the Latin and the 
French languages, and was desirous of making English 
the equal of these languages. To attain this end he 
treated English with a freedom not always approved by 
his readers, who were sometimes puzzled by the strange 
words with which he confronted them. Thus in the 
preface to his Eneydos, which was published in 1490, he 
says he was attracted to the French book " by cause of 
the fayr and honest termes and wordes in frenshe " ; and 
having decided to translate it into English, he " wrote 
a leef or tweyne " as sample. Then he adds : " and 
whan I sawe the fayr and straunge termes therin/ I 
doubted that it sholde not please some gentylmen whiche 
late blamed me, sayeng that in my translacyons I had 
ouer curyous termes whiche coude not be understande 
of comyn peple/ and desired me to vse olde and homely 
termes in my translacyons. And fayn wolde I satysfye 
euery man/ and so to doo, toke an olde boke and redde 
therein/ and certaynly the englysshe was so rude and 



238 MODERN ENGLISH 

brood that I coude not wele vnderstande it. And also 
my lorde abbot of westmynster ded do shewe to me late 
certayn euidences wry ton in olde englysshe, for to reduce 
it into our englysshe now vsid/ and certaynly it was 
wreton in such wyse that it was more lyke to dutche 
than englysshe ; I coude not reduce ne brynge it to be 
vnderstonden/ And certaynly our langage now vsed 
varyeth ferre from that whiche was ysed and spoken 
whan I was borne/ For we englysshe men/ ben borne 
vnder the domynacyon of the mone, whiche is neuer 
stedfaste/ but euer wauerynge/ wexynge one season/ and 
waneth & dyscreaseth another season." 1 

Caxton then adds that his book is not translated " for 
a rude uplondyssh man to laboure therin," but for the 
clerk and gentleman, and if these do not understand his 
words, let them go read Vergil and the other Latin 
writers, and then they shall lightly understand all. It 
is plain from what he says here that Caxton's sympa- 
thies were with the enrichers rather than with the con- 
servatives. 

As a further illustration of Caxton's method of 
Latinizing and Gallicizing English, we may quote the 
following extract from the Eneydos : 

"For to here/ opene/ and declare the matere of whiche 
hereafter shall be made mencyon/ It behoueth to pre- 
suppose that Troye, the grete capytall cyte/ and thex- 
cellentest of alle the cytees of the countre ■& regyon of 
Asye, was constructe and edefyed by the ryght puys- 
saunt & renomed kyng Pryamus, sone of laomedon, 

1 Comyn = common ; brood = broad ; ferre = far. The cross-bar, used 
in the above passage, is found in manuscripts and early printed books as 
a kind of punctuation, standing either for a period or a comma. It is not, 
however, very consistently employed. 



ENGLISH WORDS 239 

descended of thauncyen stocke of Dardanus by many 
degrees/ whiche was sone of Jubyter & of Electra his 
wyf, after the fyctions poetyque/ And the fyrste orygy- 
nall begynnynge of the genealogye of kynges. And the 
saycl Troye was enuyronned in fourme of siege/ and of 
excidyon by Agamenon, kynge in grece, brother of mene- 
laus/ whiche was husbonde to helayne. The whiche 
agamenon, assembled and accompanyed wyth many 
kynges, dukes/ erles/ and grete quantyte of other princes 
& grekes innumerable, hadde the magystracyon and 
vnyuersall gouernaunce of alle thexcersite and hoost 
to-fore Troye." x 

The words in this passage which would likely have 
seemed strange to an unlearned Englishman of Caxton's 
day are the following: declare; matere == matter; 
mencyon = mention ; presuppose ; capytall ; thexcellen- 
test = the excellentest ; regyoun = region ; constructs 
(from Latin construction) ; eclefyed =*= edified (from 
Latin aedifico, I build) ; puyssaunt ; renomed = re- 
nowned ; descended ; thauncyen = the ancient ; de- 
grees ; fyctions ; poetyque ; orygynall ; genealogye ; 
enuyronned ; fourme = form ; excidyon (from excidium 
= siege) ; assembled ; accompanyed ; quantyte ; in- 
numerable ; magistracy on = magistracy ; vnyuersall ; 
gouernaunce ; thexcersite = the excersite (from Latin 
exercitus, army). Of these it is interesting to observe 
that only two, excidyon and excersite, are altogether un- 
known to the Modern English reader, and that most of 
the rest are perfectly familiar to any adult person of 
average education. One or two are used in somewhat 
unusual senses, as, for example, edefyed in the sense of 

1 Eneydos, pp. 10-11. 



240 MODERN ENGLISH 

" built " (but cf. Modern English " edifice ") ; but the 
meanings seem strange because our Modern English 
words have ceased to be used with the strict etymologi- 
cal value that Caxton gives them. It is interesting to 
observe also that Caxton endeavors often to explain 
and define his new and strange words by coupling them 
with words of similar meaning and familiar form, as, 
for example, opene and declare ; countre $• regyon ; first 
orygynall begynnynge ; of siege and of excidyon ; excer- 
site and hoost. But sometimes also he puts two new 
words together, trusting perhaps that they will ex- 
plain each other, as construete 1 and edefyed; puyssaunt 
$> renomed; assembled and aecompanyed. 

Caxton gives great credit to Chaucer as a pioneer in 
this attempt to enrich the English language which he 
carries on. In the Proem, or Preface, to his edition of 
The Canterbury Tales he praises Chaucer in the follow- 
ing terms, which indeed carry the methods of the enrich- 
ers to the limits of absurdity : 

" For to-fore that he [i. e., Chaucer] by labour embel- 
lished, ornated and made fair our English, in this realm 
was had rude speech and incongruous, as yet it appeareth 
by old books, which at this day ought not to have place 
ne be compared among, ne to, his beauteous volumes and 

1 The form construete is a past participle formed from the Latin past 
participle constructum, the present form of which is construo, " I build or 
construct." It could be appreciated as a past participle only by those who 
were aware of this etymology ; for the normal English feeling for a past 
participle demanded a participial -ed ending ; and so as the word came to 
be accepted into general use, it took the past participial form constructed. 
In legal phraseology, however, the form situate (without the -ed) is still 
used as a past participle, being of the same formation as Caxton's con- 
struete. The present form of Latin construo appears in English construe, 
the past participle of which is no longer felt to be construct but construed. 



ENGLISH WORDS 241 

ornate writings, of whom he made many books and treat- 
ises of many a noble history, as well in metre as in 
rhyme and prose ; and them so craftily made that he 
comprehended his matters in short, quick, and high sen- 
tences, eschewing prolixity, casting away the chaff of 
superfluity, and shewing the picked grain of sentence 
uttered by crafty and sugared eloquence." * 

Caxton, however, is unfair to Chaucer in counting him 
among the conscious enrichers of the language. Chaucer, 
to be sure, used a great many words which were not in 
the English vocabulary before the period of French in- 
fluence. But the words which Chaucer used were al- 
most all of them words which had acquired citizenship 
in the English language of his time. He used them 
because in the centuries which had followed the Con- 
quest they had come to be standard English words. 

Another scholar and author of this period who was 
extremely zealous in his efforts to enrich the language 
was Sir Thomas Elyot (1490?-1546). Among Elyot's 
numerous books written in English, the most interesting 
and important is The Boke named the Gouernour, pub- 
lished in 1531, a book on general political philosophy 
and the theory of education. Convinced of the poverty 
of the Old English, or native, vocabulary as compared 
with the Latin, Greek, and French, Elyot set about the 
task of augmenting or enriching his English vocabu- 
lary. Naturally, his strange words met with the same 
opposition that Caxton's had found. " Diuers men," he 
says, "rather scornyng my benefite than receyuing it 
thankfully, doo shewe them selfes offended (as they say) 
with my strange termes." He was gratified, however, 

1 See Pollard, Fifteenth Century Prose and Verse, p. 232. 
16 



242 MODERN ENGLISH 

that his work should meet with the approval of the 
king, Henry VIII, and he expresses the purpose of his 
reforms as follows : " His Highnesse benignely recey- 
uynge my boke, whiche I named The Gouernour, in the 
redynge therof sone perceyued that I intended to aug- 
ment our Englyshe tongue whereby men shulde as well 
expresse more abundantly the thynge that they con- 
ceyued in theyr hartis (wherefore language was or- 
deyned), hauynge wordes apte for the pourpose, as also 
interprete out of greke, latyn or any other tonge into 
Englysshe, as sufficiently as out of any one of the said 
tongues into an other. His Grace also perceyued that 
throughout the boke there was no terme new made by 
me of a latin or frenche worde, but it is there declared 
so playnly by one mene or other to a diligent reder, that 
no sentence is thereby made derke or harde to be under- 
stande." 2 

Among the examples of what were regarded as 
" strange termes " in his day, but which have now be- 
come generally accepted as commonplace words in the 
language, Elyot mentions industry, magnanimity, matur- 
ity, sobriety, and temperance. Thomas Nashe, a few 
years later, finds much to criticize in the vocabulary of 
his literary enemy, Gabriel Harvey. Among the words 
and phrases used by Harvey which sound strange to-day 
may be cited the following: canicular tales ; effectuate; ad- . 
doulee his melodic ; polimechany. But by far the greater 
number of those words mentioned by Nashe are good, 
if somewhat learned English to-day ; a few may be 
given in modern spelling : ingenuity ; putative opinions ; 
artificiality ; cordial liquor ; perfunctory discourses; the 

1 Crofts, The Boke named the Gouernour, p. lxvi. 



ENGLISH WORDS 243 

gracious law of amnesty; amicable end; extensively 
employed; notoriety; negotiation; mechanician. Like 
Caxton, Nashe is of the opinion that Chaucer was a 
great innovator in the use of words, but declares that if 
Chaucer had lived to his time, he would have discarded 
the harsher sort of his strange words. They were, he 
says, the ooze " which ouertlowing barbarisme, with- 
drawne to her Scottish Northren chanell, had left behind 
her. Art, like yong grasse in the spring of Chaucers 
florishing, was glad to peepe vp through any slime of 
corruption, to be beholding to she car'd not whome for 
apparaile, trauailing in those colde countries." 1 Yet 
Nashe himself is very fond of a learned word, and in read- 
ing any of his or his contemporary's works, one is sur- 
prised to find how many of their Latin words have made 
their way into accepted use. There are, to be sure, many 
words which were probably never again used after the 
immediate occasion which called them into being. As 
we might expect, when a scholarly author sets to work 
with the avowed intent of enriching the language, he is 
sure to be led into numerous extravagances. And the 
extremists among the Latinists, or enrichers, were un- 
doubtedly fair game for such satire as that of Thomas 
Wilson, in his Three Orations of Demosthenes, 1570, 
where he gives the following high-sounding letter, pur- 
porting to have come to him from an old schoolfellow : 
" Pondering, expending, and revoluting with myself 
your ingent affability and ingenious capacity for mun- 
dane affairs, I cannot but celebrate and extol your mag- 
nificent dexterity above all other. ... I doubt not but 

1 Works, ed. McKerrow, I, 317. The work in which this passage ap- 
peared was first printed in 1592. 



244 MODERN ENGLISH 

you will adjuvate such poor adnichilate orphans as 
whilom condisciples with you and of antique familiarity 
in Lincolnshire." 1 

Another satire on extravagance in the use of big 
words is to be found in the character of Rombus, the 
schoolmaster, in Sir Philip Sidney's mask The Lady of 
May. Rombus addresses his ignorant companions in 
language like the following: "Why, you brute nebu- 
lons, have you had my corpusculum so long among you, 
and cannot yet tell how to edify an argument ? Attend 
and throw your ears to me . . . till I have endoctrinated 
your plumbeous cerebrosities ! " 2 With the character 
of Rombus should also be compared the three artifi- 
cial characters in Shakspere's Loves Labour '« Lost, the 
Spanish Knight, Don Armado, with " a mint of phrases 
in his brain," Sir Nathaniel, the curate, and the pedantic 
schoolmaster, Holofernes. 

The extravagances of these satirical characters ex- 
pressing (as they undoubtedly do) to a certain extent 
the methods of the augmenters of English, it will be 
readily seen that the conservatives and opponents of the 
introduction of new words had an important and neces- 
sary duty to perform. If the Latinists had been allowed 
full sway, they would practically have turned English 
into a sort of mongrel Latin dialect. The conservatives, 
or the Saxonists as we may call them to distinguish 
them from the Latinists, therefore had considerable jus- 
tice on their side, and indeed defended their cause with 
ability. Yet it is interesting to see that even the most 
conservative of the Saxonists are driven unconsciously to 

1 Quoted in Raleigh's Introduction to Hobi/'s Courtier, p. xliii. 

2 Miscellaneous Works of Sidney, ed. Gray, p. 274. 



ENGLISH WORDS 245 

use many words of recent introduction from Latin. The 
language needed these words to express the ideas which 
both Saxonists and Latinists wanted to express; it 
needed them to become the cosmopolitan and universal 
language which even the Saxonists would have it to be ; 
and so, tho they were conservatives, they could not 
be altogether reactionary and un progressive. The head 
of this conservative faction may be regarded as Sir John 
Cheke, first Regius Professor of Greek in Cambridge 
University (1540), who lays down the principles of his 
school in a letter to his " loving frind Mayster Thomas 
Hoby," which Hoby prefixes to his translation of Castig- 
lione's Courtier, His statement is as follows : " I am of 
this opinion that our tung should be written cleane and 
pure, unmixt and unmangeled with borowing of other 
tunges, wherein we take not heed by tijm, ever borrow- 
ing and never payeng, she shall be fain to keep her 
house as bankrupt. For then doth our tung naturallie 
and praisablie utter her meaning, when she bouroweth 
no counterfeitness of other tunges to attire her self 
withall, but useth plainlie her own, with such shift as 
nature, craft, experiens and following excellent doth 
lead her unto, and if she want at ani tijm (as being 
unperfight she must), yet let her borow with such bash- 
fulness that it mai appeer, that if either the mould of 
our own tung could serve us to fascion a woord of our 
own, or if the old denisoned wordes could content and 
ease this neede, we wold not boldly venture of unknowen 
wordes." 

In his Toxophilus, published in 1545, Roger Ascham 
also ranges himself under the banner of the conserva- 
tives. "He that wyll wryte well in any tongue," he 



246 MODERN ENGLISH 

says, " must folowe thys council of Aristotle, to speake 
as the comon people do, to think as wise men do. Many 
English writers haue not done so, but usinge straunge 
wordes as latin, french, and Italian, do make all thinges 
darke and harde. Ones I communed with a man whiche 
reasoned the englyshe tongue to be enryched and en- 
creased thereby, sayinge : Who wyll not prayse that 
feaste, where a man shall drinke at a diner bothe wyne, 
ale, and beere ? Truely, quod I, they be all good, euery 
one taken by hym selfe alone, but if you putte Malmesye 
and sacke, read wyne and whyte, ale and beere, and al 
in one pot, you shall make a drynke neyther easie to 
be knowen nor yet holsom for the body." A similar 
argument is made by Wilson, in his Arte of Rhetorihe 
(1553) : " Some seke so far for outlandishe English, 
that they forget altogether their mother's language — 
and yet these fine English clerks will saie they speke in 
their mother tongue, if a man should charge them for 
counterfeyting the king's English. He that cometh 
lately out of France, will talke Frenche Englishe, and 
never blush at the matter. Another choppes in with 
English Italianated, and applieth the Italian phrase to 
our English speaking ... I know them that thinke 
Rhetorike to stand wholie upon darke wordes ; and he 
that can catche an ynkehorne term by the tail, hym they 
compt 1 to be a fine Englishman and good rhetorician." 

The same side is taken by Gascoigne in his Posies, 
published in 1575. He declares that he has "alwayes 
bene of opinion that it is not unpossible eyther in Poemes 
or in Prose too write both compendiously and perfectly 
in our English tongue. And therefore, although I chal- 

1 From Latin compute = Modern English "count." 



ENGLISH WORDS 247 

enge not unto my selfe the name of an English Poet, yet 
may the Reader finde oute in my wry tings, that I have 
more faulted in keeping the olde English wordes (quam- 
vis iam obsoleta) than in borrowing of other such Epi- 
thetes and Adjectives as smell of the Inkhorne." 1 And, 
to quote one more of these scholar-critics, we find Put- 
tenham, in his Art of Poesie (1589), joining the chorus : 
" We finde in our English writers many wordes and 
speaches amendable ; and ye shall see in some many 
inkhorne termes so ill affected, brought in by men of 
learnyng, as preachers and schoolemasters : and many 
straunge termes of other languages, by secretaries and 
marchaunts and travailours, and many darke wordes, 
and not usual nor well sounding, though they be daily 
spoken in court." 

But these complaints and cautionings of the conserv- 
atives were largely in vain. The result of the conflict 
between the Latinists and the Saxonists was a virtual 
victory for the Latinists. The whole situation is admi- 
rably summed up in the following passage from a contem- 
porary writer, who is rebutting the argument of those 
conservatives who maintained that English had lost its 
credit and become completely bankrupt as result of 
wholesale borrowing : 

" I mervaile how our English tongue hath crackt it credit, 
that it may not borrow of the Latine as wel as other tongues; 
and if it have broken 2 it is but of late, for it is not unknowen 
to all men, how many wordes we have fetcht from thence 

1 The Posies, edited by Cunliffe, Vol. I, p. 5. Elsewhere he adds that 
he has rather "regarde to make our native language commendable in it 
selfe, than gay with the feathers of straunge birdes." 

2 That is, if it has become bankrupt. 



248 MODERX ENGLISH 

within these few yeeres, which if they should be all counted 
ink-pot tearmes, I know not how we shall speake anie thing 
without blacking our mouthes with inke : for what word can 
be more plain than this word (plain), and yet what can come 
more neere to the Latine ? What more manifest than (mani- 
fest) ? and yet in a manner Latine : what more commune 
than (rare), or lesse rare than (commune), and yet both of 
them comming of the Latine ? But you will saie, long use 
hath made these wordes currant : and why may not use doe 
as much for those wordes which we shall now devise ? Why 
should we not doe as much for the posteritie as we have re- 
ceived of the antiquitie ? . . . But how hardlie soever you 
deale with youre tongue, how barbarous soever you count it, 
how little soever you esteeme it, I durst myselfe undertake 
(if I were furnished with learning otherwise) to write in it 
as copiouslie for varietie, as compendiously for brevitie, as 
choicely for words, as pithilie for sentences, as pleasantlie 
for figures, and everie waie as eloquentlie, as anie writer 
should do in anie vulgar tongue whatsoever." 1 

To be sure not all the words, or perhaps even most of 
them, which the enrichers attempted to add to the Eng- 
lish vocabulary were accepted into general use. But the 
principle of their contention was accepted by all, and of 
course a great many of their specific recommendations. 
It was felt that the English language to be a fitting me- 
dium for the expression of all the thought of Europe, of 
all that the Greek, the Latin, the Italian, and the French 
had expressed, needed to extend its resources. The 
result was not a wholesale and violent importation of 
foreign words, but rather a tendency towards a generous 

1 From The Civile Conversation of M. Stephen Guazzo . . . translated by 
G. Pettie out of French (1586), quoted by Raleigh, Hoby's Courtier, pp. 
xlv-xlvi. 



ENGLISH WORDS 249 

liberalism which allowed a writer to introduce whatever 
words he could make good use of. Naturally these ad- 
ditions to the vocabulary were largely learned or semi- 
learned words. There was no reason why common objects 
should receive new names, since they already had perfectly 
adequate terms to designate them; but ideas of a more 
or less abstract character, descriptive words often, and 
words designating actions, these frequently required the 
invention of a new term. Even when the language 
already possessed a fairly adequate word, the invention 
of a new and synonymous one often enabled a writer to 
express himself more exactly or more musically and 
rhythmically. It is of course absurd to give a single 
reason for so complex an appearance as the Elizabethan 
period of English literature, with its unequaled throng 
of poets and dramatists, Shakspere at their head. But 
it is perhaps not unreasonable to suppose that the broad- 
ening and extending of the English language in the 
Renascence period, through its assimilation to itself of 
all the preceding culture of Europe, was a necessary 
preliminary to the appearance of a world-poet like Shak- 
spere in England. There is, to be sure, no telling that 
Shakspere might not have been born and expressed him- 
self just as powerfully and with just as universal an 
appeal if the language had not been subjected to the 
critical examination and augmentation of the Latinist 
theorizers, if it had remained practically as it was at 
the end of the fifteenth century. We cannot prove 
that this would not have been true, but we can fairly 
doubt it. We can point out that no other Teutonic 
nation has produced a figure to be compared with 
Shakspere, with the possible exception of Goethe, in 



250 MODERN ENGLISH 

Germany, and that even Goethe, who lived and died 
two centuries after Shakspere, must yield to the great 
Elizabethan when we consider both from the side of 
their cosmopolitan appeal. Goethe is the greatest poet 
of Germany, but Goethe is not known and admired 
in Italy, France, and England as Shakspere is in 
Italy, France, and Germany. The French influence 
of the Middle English period, followed by the class- 
ical influence of the Renascence period, both working 
upon the solid and constant Teutonic base, these are 
the great influences which have made the English lan- 
guage what it is, have given it a variety, a richness, 
and an adaptability that enabled a great poet like 
Shakspere to use it as the measure, not only of all 
English thought, but of the thought of the western 
world. 

19. Word-pairs in English. Before passing on to 
the consideration of later borrowings in English, one 
question relating to the earlier borrowings frequently 
misstated and misunderstood must be given a moment's 
attention. This is the question of the use of words in 
pairs by the English writers of the Middle English and 
Renascence periods, as in the following examples from 
the Prayer Book (1549) : pray and beseech ; dissemble 
nor cloak ; vanquish and overcome ; defender and keepers- 
dearth and scarcity, etc. It is often mistakenly sup- 
posed that this habit of using two synonymous words 
for one idea arose in the Middle English period as a 
result of the bilingual development of English at that 
time. It is assumed that a writer when he used a word 
of French origin would join with it an explaining word 
of similar meaning of English origin, and, vice versa, a 



ENGLISH WORDS 251 

word of English origin would be used to explain a word 
of French origin. 1 

An examination of actual usage, however, does not 
support the theory, since it is found that words occur in 
pairs without reference to their etymological origin. In 
Chaucer's Prolog, for example, occur sixteen word- 
pairs consisting of one French and one English word, 
thirteen in which both are English, and nine in which 
both are French, making a total of twenty-two in which 
the theory of bilingualism is not illustrated as opposed 
to sixteen in which it might be illustrated. 2 

But there are other good reasons besides this testimony 
of actual practice for disbelieving that their etymological 
origin had anything to do with the coupling of words 
together in pairs. An examination of earlier English lit- 
erature before the time of French influence, and conse- 
quently before any bilingual tendencies can be supposed 
to operate, shows the same custom in the use of synony- 
mous word-pairs. In the Blichling Homilies, for example, 
written towards the end of the tenth century, in the 
Alfredian translation of Bede's Ecclesiastical History, 
and elsewhere, we find word-pairs very abundantly 
used, both words necessarily being English. Moreover, 
it would be easy to find illustrations of the same device 
of expression in other languages than English, for ex- 
ample, in the Latin of Cicero, in which the theory of 
bilingualism could not possibly enter. In short, the real 
explanation of the use of words in pairs is rhetorical and 
oratorical rather than etymological. By the use of two 

1 For a typical misstatement of the question, see Earle, Philology of 
the English Tongue (1892), §§ 77, 78. 

2 See Emerson, Modern Language Notes, viii, 202-206. 



252 MODERN ENGLISH 

words a writer often gets a richer cadence, an oratorical 
amplification of the expression that may seem to him more 
effective than the use of a single word would be. A 
language rich in synonyms, as, for example, Modern 
English, is peculiarly liable to an abuse of this rhetorical 
device ; it is an easy one, and young writers are much 
given to the use of two parallel words where one would 
answer as well. This is due less to a desire for clearness 
than " to that craving for symmetry which finds expres- 
sion in all varieties of antitheses and balance. . . . Mr. 
Swinburne's adjectives and substantives hunt in fierce 
couples through the rich jungle of his prose. The taste for 
pairs, once acquired, like ail the tastes of the wealthy, is 
hard to put off." 1 Altho the origin and the use of 
word-pairs is due to some such rhetorical or oratorical 
cause as has been mentioned, it should not be over- 
looked that in the period of the Renascence, with its 
more or less conscious attitude towards vocabulary, 
the doctrine of bilingualism is a little more to the 
point in explaining the use of word-pairs. Undoubtedly 
a strange word was often explained by coupling with 
it a familiar word, and both Caxton and Sir Thomas 
Elyot expressly state that such was their custom. 
Translators were especially given to the use of several 
words in translating a single word of their original. 
Lord Berners' translation of Froissart, for example, 
has such groups as the following: "they show, open, 
manifest and declare to the reader"; "what we should 
inquire, desire and follow"; "with what labors, dangers 
and perils," etc. Caxton, also, in order to make sure 
that he is expressing the meaning of his original fully, 

1 Raleigh, Introduction to Hoby's Courtier, p. lviii. 



ENGLISH WORDS 253 

often uses two synonymous words, without reference 
however to etymology, when the French or Latin from 
which he is translating uses but a single word. 1 

20. Later Borrowings in English. No later period 
of English has borrowed words so freely from other 
languages as did the Middle English and the Renascence 
periods. By the beginning of the seventeenth century 
the English vocabulary in its main outlines was fixed 
for once and all. Consequently in reading Shakspere, 
altho there are occasional words which have become 
obsolete, or which are now used in somewhat different 
senses from Shakspere's, we nevertheless feel that in 
general the dramatist's vocabulary is Modern English. 
It is no longer in an experimental stage, as, for example, 
Caxton's is, but is the definitely fixed and settled 
vocabulary of the English language. This does not 
mean that no new words have been added to English 
since Shakspere's time. On the contrary, the language 
has been continually receiving new words; it does so 
to-day, and will doubtless continue to borrow from other 
languages as long as the English people are thrown into 
contact with other peoples. 

21. Later Borrowings from French. French words 
have been taken over into English in modern times most 
abundantly in the late seventeenth and eighteenth cen- 
turies, in the so-called Augustan or Classical period of 
English literature. At this time French again came to be 
regarded in England as a polite language. This was partly 



1 For further discussion of these points, see Raleigh, as above"; Griffin, 
in the Publications of the Modern Language Association, xv, 172, note; 
Hart, "Rhetoric in the Translation of Bede," in An English Miscellany, 
presented to Dr. Furnivall, pp. 150-154. 



254 MODERN ENGLISH 

due to the influence of Charles II, who, having acquired 
French tastes during his residence in France, transferred 
his French habits and preferences to the English court on 
his restoration to the English throne in 1660. It became 
a fashionable custom of the time to interlard one's speech 
with French words and phrases, a custom which is fre- 
quently satirized in the comedies of the period. Never- 
theless a good number of the faddish and fashionable 
words thus introduced seemed to be needed, since they 
have persisted in the language, and have now become 
every-day words in the vocabulary. Examples are words 
like cadet, caprice, caress, coquet, dessert, festoon, gazette, 
grimace, grotesque, guitar. It should be noted that many 
of the French words introduced in this period have the 
accent on the second syllable, following thus the French 
rule of accent, whereas words of French origin intro- 
duced in the earlier periods have all changed the accent 
from the second to the first syllable, following the 
English rule, as, for example, palace (French palais'), 
courage (French courage'). In general it is a safe rule 
that when a word of French origin bears an accent on 
the second syllable, the word is of late introduction into 
English. 

In contemporary English, French words of several 
kinds have been borrowed. We have, for example, a 
number of words which constitute what might be called 
hotel French, such as menu, entree,' carafe, chef, demi 
tasse, suite (of rooms), table d'hote, a la carte, etc. 
Another group comes under the head of milliner's French, 
words like toilette, habit (meaning dress) ; coiffure, 
manteau, etc. ; and another might be called society 
French, words like debut, fiancee, nee, soiree, musicale, etc. 



ENGLISH WORDS 255 

The interest of the French in automobiles and mechanical 
invention in general has resulted in the common use of 
a number of words which may be called engineer's 
French, e. g., aeronaut, aerostat, caisson, chauffeur, garage, 
tonneau, etc. 

It is interesting to note that the balance between 
Modern English borrowings from French and Modern 
French borrowings from English inclines rather in favor 
of the English. Some of the English words taken over 
into French in the last two centuries are the following : 
redingote (English riding-coat), jockey, rhum (English 
rum), rosbif (roast-beef), ponche (punch), pique-nique 
{picnic), boulingrin (bowling-green), club, boghei {buggy), 
dog-cart, tramway, cricket, foot-ball, boule-dogue (bull- 
dog), lawn tennis, bifteck (beefsteak), pannequet (pan- 
cake), sandwich, chdle (shawl), black-bouler (to blackball), 
fifoclock (five o' 'clock), higlif (high life), toast, home} 

22. Borrowings from German. English has never 
shown a strong tendency to borrow from German, and 
the number of German words in the English vocabulary 
is consequently small. Some of those which have been 
taken, however, are very characteristic words, like waltz, 
carouse, poodle, meerschaum ; a few words naming ob- 
jects or foods, like pretzel, stein (a drinking-mug), sauer- 
kraut, mangel-wurzel (the name of a vegetable). A 
number of words naming minerals, bismuth, blende, cobalt, 
quartz, shale, zinc, etc. are from German, illustrating 

1 See Nyrop, Grammaire historique de la Langue Frangaise, Vol. I, 
pp. 75, 84-85. Nyrop remarks, p. 84, that " the language which unques- 
tionably has furnished and which continues to furnish the largest number 
of borrowed words to modern French is English." • The words are es- 
pecially those connected with " commerce, manufacturing, sport, and 
fashion." 



256 MODERN ENGLISH 

the fact that " it was in Germany that mineralogy first 
attained the rank of a science." 1 The word carouse, 
from German gar aus, that is, "all out," was taken over 
in the early Elizabethan period. It designated originally 
a drinking custom similar to that known as drinking 
super nagulum — " which is, after a man hath turnd vp 
the bottom of the cup, to drop it on hys naile and make 
a pearle with that is left ; which, if it slide, and he can- 
not mak stand on, by reason thers too much, he must 
drinke againe for his penance." 2 

A few words are more or less used in their German 
form, tho they can hardly be said to have been adopted 
into English. Examples are heimweh, " homesick- 
ness "; Zeitgeist, literally " time-spirit," that is, " the 
spirit of the age " ; weltschmerz, literally " world-pain," 
"weariness of the world"; vaterland, "fatherland"; 
hinterland, meaning the region or land back of a sea- 
port necessary to support it. In the instance of the 
phrase Use majeste, a French phrase is borrowed to des- 
ignate what has come to be regarded as distinctly a 
German idea, the German word for it being rnajestats- 
beleidigung. The word kindergarten came into English 
with the thing itself, which originated in Germany. 

On the other hand, the Germans, like the French, 
have borrowed, and continue to borrow freely, from 
English, especially of recent years. The words which 
they have taken over are of many different kinds. 
Many words of more or less fashionable character have 
been borrowed, showing the German admiration for 
English social customs and conduct. A few such words 

1 Bradley, Making of English, p. 103. 

2 Nashe, Pierce Penilesse, ed. Grosart, II, 78. 



ENGLISH WORDS 257 

are the following: butler, groom, nurse, porter, gentle- 
man, four-in-hand, schlips (meaning necktie, and adapted 
from English slip, which, of course, never meant neck- 
tie ; the Germans, however, confused the word with 
their own native word for necktie, i. e., Schleife) ; smoking 
(for Tuxedo coat, being an abbreviation of smoking- 
jacket) ; knock-about (a soft felt hat) ; Raglan, Redingote, 
Mackintosh, Spenzer (English Spencer), Ulster, all these 
being names of different kinds of coats. Numerous 
words were taken over into what the Germans call 
" sport," meaning thereby usually field-sports after the 
English fashion. Examples are cricket, croquet, lawn- 
tennis (with all the terminology of tennis), goal, golf, 
handicap, rekord (English record), sweater, trainer, 
turf, jockei (jockey), finish, robber (i. e., rubber, in 
whist), etc. Words of nautical and seafaring character 
in general have also been borrowed, e.g., brigg {brig), 
chartern (to charter), driften (to drift), ballast, jacht 
(yacht), sloop, steward, tender, top (of mast), trimmen 
(to trim, i. e., sails, etc.), kommodore (commodore'), 
schmack (smack), etc. A few further miscellaneous 
illustrations are the following : bombast, essay, slang, 
cloivn, punch, humbug, lift (i. e., elevator), dschungel 
(jungle, Kipling's Jungle Book being called Dschungel- 
buch), scheck (check), stocks, store, streik, streiken 
(strike, to strike), kake (cake), etc. 1 

23. Various Borrowings in English. From Italian 
Modern English has borrowed a number of words, 
chiefly relating to music and the fine arts, as, for ex- 



1 See Meyerfeld, Von Sprach und Art der Deutschen und Englander, 
Berlin, 1903 ; also an article by Professor Tombo, Jr., in the New Yorker 
Staats-Zeitung, August 18, 1907. 

17 



258 MODERN ENGLISH 

ample, piano, opera, studio, fresco. Words of Span- 
ish origin are desperado, matador, ambuscade, grandee, 
and a few others. From Russian have come knout, 
steppe, verst, and very recently duma (also spelled 
douma and douhmd), vodka, ikon, pogrom, etc. Modern 
Dutch has given a number of nautical terms, e. g., boom, 
dock, hull, sloop, yacht, skipper. A few words have 
entered Modern English from the Scandinavian lan- 
guages, e. g., floe, fiord, viking, troll, saga, geyser, 
gantlet, ski. As a result of the English occupation of 
India, a number of words of East Indian origin have 
made their way into English ; examples are bandanna, 
chutney (a kind of sauce), cowry, loot, indigo, rajah, 
rupee, etc. From the American Indians we have bor- 
rowed squaw, wigwam, wampum, tobacco, potato, toboggan, 
moccasin, pemmican, besides, of course, many place 
names. From Malay have come gingham, gong, gutta- 
percha, lory, orang-outang, amuck, and ketchup. 1 From 
Chinese have come tea, mandarin, ginseng ; from the 
Philippines, datto, manila ; from the Polynesian dialects, 
taboo, tattoo. Perhaps there is no people with which the 
English have come in contact for any length of time 
that has not added a word or two to the language. 
These words are all interesting as showing the kinds of 
relations which existed between the English and the 
various other peoples. But relatively their number 
must always be small. Modern English has not felt the 
need of any very extensive borrowing, and with one ex- 
ception, to be noted in the next paragraph, has managed 
to get along satisfactorily on its inherited resources. 
Foreign words are sometimes taken into the language 

1 Bradley, Making of English, p. 104. 



ENGLISH WORDS 259 

temporarily. They are used as long as the special cir- 
cumstances which called them into prominence are 
present, but afterwards they pass completely out of use. 
Thus, during the Spanish-American war a number of 
words became familiar to the American public through 
their use in the newspapers, words like pronunciamento, 
machete, reconcentrado ; and during the Boer war a 
number of South African words gained considerable cur- 
rency, as, for example, kopje (hill), trek, laager, Uit- 
lander. But such words might be called "occasional 
words." They do not respond to any permanent need 
of the people, and after the occasion which brings them 
into use, they tend to disappear altogether from the 
language. 

The one instance in which Modern English continues 
to borrow freely from foreign languages is in its scien- 
tific and pseudo-scientific vocabulary. Here the general 
tendency is to name all new inventions and. discov- 
eries by Latin or Greek words, usually the former, either 
separately or in composition. Thus Lord Kayleigh, the 
discoverer of the new element argon a few years ago, 
made up the name for it from the two Greek elements 
a-, a prefix with a negative value, like English in-, and 
epyov, work, the whole meaning " not working," or " in- 
active," the significance of the name being found in the 
fact that argon does not readily combine with other 
elements. The recently discovered Roentgen rays have 
also brought to light a new substance, radium, the name 
of which is taken from the Latin radium, " ray," the 
characteristic of the substance being the emission of rays 
of fight. Some of the applications of science to practical 
purposes have carried with them their classical terminol- 



260 MODERN ENGLISH 

ogy. The word telephone, for example, is made up of 
two Greek elements, rnXe-, " far," and (f>covr), " sound." 
Words like telegram, telegraph, telharmonic, are similar 
compounds. The word phonograph is made up of Greek 
(pcovtj, " sound," and the root ypacj)-, meaning " to write," 
the whole word thus meaning literally " sound- writer." 
Automobile is a hybrid compound, that is, its two ele- 
ments are taken from different languages, auto- being 
from Greek avrov, " self," and mobile horn the Latin word 
of the same form, meaning " moving," the whole com- 
pound meaning therefore " self-moving." Other words 
entirely from Latin are carbon, from Latin carbo ; insula- 
tion from insulate, which is a past participle from the 
Latin verb insulare, formed from the noun insula, 
" island " (cf. isolate) ; calcium from Latin calx ; spec- 
trum, from the Latin word of the same form. 

Commercial terms are also often made of Latin or 
Greek words, as, for example, the names of products 
like glucose, oleomargarine, cottolene ; the tooth-powder 
called sozodont from Greek aw^a), " I save," and 6S6vt-, 
" tooth " ; and a great many others of like formation. 

24. Etymology. Since the English vocabulary is de- 
rived from so many different sources, it will be readily 
seen that the study of etymology, which is the study of 
the origin and history of words, is one of peculiar impor- 
tance to those whose native speech is English. It is not 
always, or indeed generally, necessary to know the ety- 
mology of a word in order to use it correctly. Words 
mean to-day exactly the ideas which they convey from 
one person to another, and any forcible attempt to make 
their present use conform to their etymological meaning 
is pedantic and vain. Thus the word villain etymologi- 



ENGLISH WORDS 261 

cally is related to village, and meant originally a serf, or 
person who was bound to the land. From the meaning 
of li serf " or " villager," through the stages " ignorant," 
then " degraded," the word has come to its present 
meaning, " an evil or wicked person." Its value there- 
fore in Modern English must be determined by its use, 
not by its etymological history. Nevertheless, as one's 
knowledge of the history and origins of one's vocabulary 
increases, in the same degree one's use of words will 
grow in definiteness and certainty of meaning, and in 
richness of content. All great writers have been earnest 
etymologists; they have striven to give their words as 
full and rich a meaning as they would hold, and the 
reader, on his side, can get as much meaning out of them 
only when his knowledge equals that of his author. 

Etymology, however, is something more than mere 
guess-work. Because two words look alike, it is not 
always safe to infer that they are forms of the same 
w^ord. In Old English there are two words god and 
god, the first with a short vowel, giving Modern English 
god, the second, with the long vowel, giving Modern 
English good. But the two words are etymologically 
altogether distinct ; one is not derived from the other, 
and the etymology which one hears sometimes from the 
lips of preachers, " God is good," is altogether false. In 
Modern English the adverb gingerly, as in the phrase 
"to touch something gingerly with the tips of the 
fingers/' looks as though it had some connection with 
the noun ginger, — certainly not an obvious connection, 
altho with ingenuity one might be able to hammer it 
out. In fact, however, the word gingerly is not etymo- 
logically related to ginger, but to gentle, gentry, etc., and 



262 MODERN ENGLISH 

the similarity in form does not indicate any relationship 
in meaning. 1 This method of explaining the etymologies 
of words by their general apparent similarities to other 
words was the one in common use until the compara- 
tively recent results of the exact study of language, 
especially phonetics, enabled scholars to formulate the 
rules of etymologizing in a systematic and scientific way. 
Thus Chaucer, in his version of the life of St. Cecilia in 
the Canterbury Tales, following the custom of his period, 
gives a half dozen different etymologies of the name 
Cecilia, all of them pure guesses and all of them wrong. 
Shakspere, in Cymbeline? gives a similarly fanciful 
etymology of the Latin word mulier, " woman," from 
mollis aer. 

Two writers of modern times who were particularly 
given to the vicious habit of careless etymologizing are 
Carlyle 3 and Ruskin. In illustration of Ruskin's method 
we may quote the following passage : " What do you 
think the beautiful word ' wife ' comes from ? It is the 
great word in which the English and Latin languages 
conquer the French or Greek. I hope the French will 
some day get a word for it instead of their femme. But 
what do you think it comes from ? The great value of 
the Saxon words is that they mean something. ' Wife ' 

1 The word niggard is derived from a root-word found in Scandinavian 
and English, meaning scanty, stingy, plus the suffix -ard, as in dullard, 
coward, etc. This makes the point of the following humorous use of the 
word in Higginson's Contemporaries, p. 346 : Dr. Hackett was annoyed by 
vagrant boys, who delighted in filling the keyhole of his hut with gravel. 
" Such conduct," Dr. Hackett said, " I should call, sir, — with no disre- 
spect to the colored population, — niggardly." 

2 See Cymbeline, Act V, v, 446 ; also V, iv, 140, and V, v, 437. 

3 See Sartor Resartus, Chapter VII, where Carlyle gives the often- 
repeated but false etymology of king from kenning (cunning), " canning," 
" the one who can," or " is able." 



ENGLISH WORDS 263 

You must be either house- wives or 
house-moths, remember that. In the deep sense, you 
must either weave men's fortunes and embroider them, 
or feed upon them and bring them to decay." 

The absurdity of this is obvious. Whatever the word 
wife may at one time have meant, it certainly does not 
now mean weaver, and all of Ruskin's fine sentiment is 
based upon a manifest falsehood. The grave defect of 
all such etymologizing is that it takes account only of 
the mere surface similarities that exist between words, 
similarities which may or may not be indications of a 
real relationship, but which are never systematically 
tested or examined. The weakness of such etymologiz- 
ing is usually to be found in the insufficient knowledge 
and observation of the etymologizer. Legitimate and 
sound etymologizing is not, indeed, work for novices. 
It is a science that follows a method; it has its rules 
and tests, and is not dependent only on clever guessing 
and* imagination. The tests of a reasonable etymology 
are these : (1) it must be in accord with the phonetic 
laws concerned ; (2) it must agree with common sense 
on the side of any change in meaning which the etymol- 
ogy supposes ; and (3) in the case of borrowed words, it 
must agree with probability on the side of geograph- 
ical and ethnological relationships. Thus, if we find a 
similarity between a Hottentot word and an English 
one of Chaucer's day, it must be shown that English 
might have borrowed from Hottentot, or vice versa, 
before an etymology deriving one from the other can 
become even probable. Until one has had considerable 

1 Presumably because wife and weaver have initial w in common, and 
the two somewhat similar sounds/ and v. 



264 MODERN ENGLISH 

practice in the principles involved, the safest method to 
follow in matters of etymology is to trust to the author- 
ity of reputable dictionaries and special works on that 
subject. 

A considerable number of words, it should be observed, 
have been taken over into English in exactly the forms 
in which they occur in their original languages. The 
problem of etymology is here a very simple one, since 
the words suffer no change of form in transmission. Ex- 
amples from German and French have been cited above. 
But the language from which such direct borrowings 
have most frequently been made is Latin. The follow- 
ing is a list of a few words in common use which have 
exactly the same form in both languages : animal, apex, 
bonus, dogma (originally Greek), excursus, exit, extra, 
fungus, genius, index, odium, omen, onus, onyx, opium, 
pastor, pauper, premium, series, species, spectrum, termi- 
nus, transit. 

It was remarked above that the meaning of a word in 
Modern English is dependent on its present use, and 
not on its etymology, a point which should not be over- 
looked. The historical meanings of words and their 
contemporary meanings are often the same ; but when the 
meaning which Shakspere or Chaucer gave to a word is 
different from the meaning which men give it to-day, 
the earlier meaning cannot impose itself on the modern 
meaning. People often say that a word ought to mean 
so and so, because its etymology is this or that. They 
forget that language is not determined by theories of 
what ought to be or what might be, but by the condi- 
tions of its actual use to-day. Thus Jeremy Taylor 
speaks of " holy and innocent idiots, or plain easy 



ENGLISH WORDS 265 

people of the laity." A plain person might well resent 
being called an idiot to-day, because the word, originally 
from Greek ISlcott]?, " a private person," hence a lay- 
man, as distinguished from a clerk, has developed very 
far away from its primary meaning. The word lewd has 
had a similar history. It is derived from Old English 
loeived, meaning simply a layman ; like idiot it developed 
in an unfavorable direction, first into the meaning igno- 
rant, then into its present uncomplimentary significance. 
To take another illustration, the word mischief now 
applies only to wrongful or vicious acts ; it comes, how- 
ever, from an Old French word which formerly meant 
merely "misfortune," "that which ends badly." The 
Booh of the Knight of the Tour Landry, a work of 
good counsel which a father wrote for the use of his 
daughters at the end of the fourteenth century, and 
which was soon translated from the original French 
into English, uses the word in its old sense when it 
advises the daughters to be charitable, " in the same 
wise as seint Elizabeth, seint Luce, seint Cecile, and 
mani other ladyes that were charitables. They gauen 
the moste parte of thayre good vnto pore peple that 
were in necessite and mischeef." 1 The same book 
speaks of robbery, extortion, tyranny, murder, " and 
mani other inconueniencies." 2 To class robbery and 
murder together as inconveniences seems a little odd 
until we realize the original meaning of the word, which 
was "that which is not fitting," "wrong," from the 
Latin negative prefix in-, united to the present parti- 
ciple of convenire, to be fitting or proper. 

1 Early English Text Society, Vol. XXXIII, p. 152. 

2 Ibid., p. 92. 



266 MODERN ENGLISH 

Certain words have persisted in English in occasional 
uses as faded, traditional survivals. They preserve the 
older forms of the words, but have lost the older mean- 
ing without supplying a definite new meaning. Thus 
we speak of a person as "wading through blood," or 
"wading in his own blood." One need only visualize 
the picture suggested by the modern sense of " wade " 
to see how ridiculous these phrases would seem if the 
word were given its literal meaning. But the word wade. 
in these uses is only a colorless survival from its older 
sense, where it means merely "to go, walk," as in the 
following line : 

Beholde how he wadep yn hys owne blod ! * 

Another illustration is the phrase time and tide. The 
word tide, in the sense of " ocean tide," fairly fits its use 
in the familiar proverb, in which alone the phrase is 
used ; but the idea of ocean tide is not usually in the 
minds of speakers when they pronounce the proverb. 
The word tide in the phrase really has no definite mean- 
ing, altho originally it had the same meaning as time, 
a sense which is still preserved in compounds like 
Christmas-tide, Whitsuntide, etc. In the proverb, there- 
fore, it is merely a colorless survival, like wade. Occa- 
sional words of this nature are used in an affected way in 
modern literary style. Thus one now and then meets 
the phrase " hark back " in the sense " return to," as in 
the sentence " He harked back to the subject of his for- 
mer discourse," or " He was continually harking back to 
the experiences of the preceding summer." It is often 
vaguely used also in the sense of " imitate," as when one 

1 Meditations on the Passion, Early English Text Society, Vol. LX, p. 1 7. 



ENGLISH WORDS 267 

poet is said to hark back to another. The phrase has 
necessarily become somewhat vague and unnatural, since 
its primary significance is lost, and no new definite mean- 
ing has been given to it. Originally it was a term in 
hunting, and was used of the hounds returning "along 
the course taken when the scent has been lost, till it is 
found again." : As long as this literal meaning was 
clear, the figurative sense of the phrase was intelligible ; 
but with the loss of literal significance, it has become 
merely a traditional survival. Another phrase of the 
same kind is " at the first blush," as in the sentence, " At 
the first blush it would seem that the poets were little 
concerned with the practical affairs of life." The word 
" blush " has now no meaning which can make this 
phrase seem reasonable. Its earlier and primary mean- 
ing, however, was "look," "glance," and the phrase 
meant " at the first glance." Writers who use it nowa- 
days do not often have any clear sense of its meaning, 
but affect it merely because they have read it in the 
works of some one else. 

25. Proportion of the Elements of the English 
Vocabulary. Altho the English vocabulary has never 
ceased to open its doors for the introduction of for- 
eign words, it must not be forgotten that it has always 
remained fundamentally and predominatingly English. 
The number of words of foreign origin used by different 
writers naturally varies with the style and manner of the 
writers ; the same writer also uses sometimes more and 
sometimes fewer foreign words, depending largely upon the 
subject-matter of his composition. It has been estimated 
that the proportion of native words to foreign, counting 

1 See New English Dictionary, under " hark back." 



268 MODERN ENGLISH 

each word every time it occurs, is in Shakspere 90 to 10 ; 
in the King James translation of the Bible, 94 to 6 ; in 
the writings of Dr. Johnson, 80 to 20 ; of the historian 
Gibbon, 70 to 30 , of Tennyson, 88 to 12. In the normal 
colloquial English of an average educated person the 
proportion of words of foreign origin probably never 
rises above ten per cent. This low percentage of foreign 
words does not mean, however, that they are ineffective 
and unnoticeable in style. Of the ninety per cent of 
native words, a large part is made up of colorless words, 
like the articles, prepositions, conjunctions, etc. ; and 
often the words which really give quality and tone to a 
passage in writing, or a phrase in speech, are just these 
occasional and somewhat exceptional words of foreign 
origin. 

By far the greater part of the borrowed element in 
English is derived from Latin and Greek, either directly 
or through the medium of a French form. Some idea of 
the extent of this classical element in English can be 
formed from the fact that we have in English in com- 
mon use, not counting the few occasional technical and 
scientific terms, words derived from about 450 Latin root- 
forms. Each of these root-forms is represented in Eng- 
lish by a varying number of differentiated words. Thus 
the Latin root ped-, meaning " foot," appears at least in 
twelve common English words derived from it : biped, 
expedite, impede, pawn (a figure in the game of chess), 
peon, pedal, pedestrian, pedicel, pedigree, pediment, 
pioneer, quadruped} Other roots are represented by 
even more words in English. The root due-, for 
example, as in Latin ducere, " to lead," appears in 

1 For the etymology of all these Avords, consult the dictionary. 



ENGLISH WORDS 269 

27 words in English; fac-, as in Latin facere, "to do," 
appears in 39 words ; and pon-, as in ponere, " to place," 
appears in 36 words. 

The number of English words derived from Greek 
roots is not so numerous as those derived from Latin, 
the total number of root-forms used with any frequency 
falling below a hundred. An example of a Greek root 
that has been abundantly productive in English is the 
root contained in the words \6yos, " a saying," and Xiyecv, 
"to speak," which appears in all the following words: 
analogy, apolog (or apologue), apology, catalog (or cata- 
logue), decalog (or decalogue'), dialect, dialog (or dialogue), 
eclectic, eclog (or eclogue), epilog (or epilogue), eulogy, 
lexicon, logarithm, logic, monolog or (monologue), prolog 
(or prologue), syllogism, and in all words in -logy, as astrol- 
ogy, biology, neurology, etc. 

26. Purity of Vocabulary. The question of purity 
of vocabulary is one of constant recurrence. According 
to the usual understanding of the term, that vocabulary 
is said to be " pure " which is made up altogether, or 
almost exclusively, from words of a single native stock. 
We have seen that the vocabulary of the Old English 
period, as compared with that of the Modern English 
period, is relatively very " pure." For altho Old 
English borrowed a few words from Latin in order to 
name objects which were brought to England by the 
Roman missionaries, in general the language was sparing 
in its use of new words, preferring, when necessary, to 
adapt an old word to a new meaning rather than borrow 
a new word outright. Later, however, first through the 
Scandinavian conquest, then through the French influ- 
ence, then the Renascence, and finally the modern inter- 



270 MODERN ENGLISH 

est in science, learning, and commerce, English has 
borrowed a vast number of words. From a " pure," a 
unilingual tongue, it has come to be a polyglot language, 
one made up of elements from a variety of languages. 

Now it happens that this polyglot character of Modern 
English carries with it, to some minds, the connotation 
of " impurity." If a language made up of entirely native 
elements is "pure," they argue, then one made up of 
divers elements is " impure," and, to that extent, less 
admirable than the other. This feeling for the purity of 
the language is partly based upon patriotic sentiment, a 
reverence for the native idiom as such, a feeling perhaps 
praiseworthy in itself, but not one which alone should be 
allowed to determine all questions of vocabulary. Of 
infinitely more importance than patriotic sentiment is 
the matter of the effectiveness of the language in use. 
It is from this point of view that we shall consider briefly 
the question of purity. 

The defense usually made for the pure, or Saxon, vo- 
cabulary has been best presented by Herbert Spencer, 
in his essay entitled The Philosophy of Style. Spencer 
argues for the u greater forcibleness of Saxon English, or 
rather non-Latin English " ; and the reasons why he re- 
gards the Saxon, or native, vocabulary as more forcible 
than the foreign, are, first, early association, " the child's 
vocabulary being almost wholly Saxon " ; and, second, 
the brevity of Saxon words as compared with words of 
foreign origin. Spencer further adds that we should 
endeavor to use concrete and specific words, which are 
usually of native origin, rather than abstract and gen- 
eral words, which are usually of foreign origin. Thus, he 
says, we should avoid such sentences as the following : 



ENGLISH WORDS 271 

" In proportion as the manners, customs, and amusements 
of a nation are cruel and barbarous, the regulations of 
their penal code will be severe." Instead of this we 
should write : " In proportion as men delight in battles, 
bull-fights, and combats of gladiators, will they punish 
by hanging, burning, and the rack." 

With these two sentences we may compare a sample 
of Spencer's own style, taken from the body of this same 
essay, the foreign words being italicized : " As we do not 
think in generals but in particulars — as, whenever any 
class of things is referred to, we represent it to ourselves 
by calling to mind individual members of it ; it follows 
that when an abstract word is used, the hearer has to 
choose from his stock of images, one or more, by which he 
may figure to himself the genus mentioned." 

Mr. Spencer's own style is in large measure the 
answer to his criticism. In the above passage of 66 
words, there are 13 words of Latin origin, a proportion 
of 19| per cent, which is the proportion of foreign words 
in the writings of Dr. Johnson. Moreover, the sentence 
quoted is an admirable illustration of general, or abstract, 
statement ; it does not follow Mr. Spencer's own rule of 
always speaking in concrete terms — as indeed it should 
not, since the purpose of the sentence is to make a gen- 
eralized statement, and not to give a group of concrete 
instances. Again, the words are not such as one usually 
finds in the vocabulary of children, nor are they remark- 
able for their brevity. One word, genus, is distinctly a 
learned word. Yet, in spite of the fact that the sentence, 
which is fairly representative of Mr. Spencer's style, 
breaks all the rules which he himself gives for a good 
style, it is nevertheless a good sentence. It has those 



272 MODERN ENGLISH 

qualities of clearness, definiteness, and simplicity which 
are general characteristics of Mr. Spencer's writings, even 
when he writes on difficult and subtle matters of philoso- 
phy. It serves its purpose well, and if so, can anything 
more be asked of it? In short, the question of the 
proper and effective use of words is not dependent upon 
their length or their origin and history, but upon their 
immediate, contemporary value ; and their value is always 
determined by the purpose which the person speaking or 
writing has in mind. Sometimes it is effective to use 
short words — if one wishes to produce the effect which 
short words produce. But long words also have their 
place, and the poetry of Milton shows that they can be 
used to good effect. All that we can say, therefore, as 
to the choice of words, is that we should use the words 
which fit the thought, whether they are Saxon or Latin. 
A Saxon word, because it is a Saxon word, has no 
special claims or special powers, nor, on the other hand, 
has a Latin word. A word is justified, or is not justified, 
by its effectiveness in expressing the thought or feeling 
of the person who uses it, and any considerations beyond 
this are vain theorizings. 

There is one group of words of partial foreign origin 
that is often regarded with special disfavor by those who 
are governed by theories of the purity of language. 
This is the class of words known as hybrids. These 
are compound words, the elements of which are taken 
from two different languages, one element from Greek, 
Latin, or French, and the other from English. A num- 
ber of such compounds are in common use in English, 
so common in fact that no one in natural speech is 
ever conscious that they are hybrids. Thus the word 



ENGLISH WORDS 273 

because is made up of the English preposition be- and 
the Latin (through the French) causa ; around is com- 
pounded of English a- and French round ; plentiful, of 
French plenti- and English -ful ; outcry, of English out 
and French cry ; and so with a great many words. In 
general these hybrids have become so much a part of the 
language that it never occurs to any one to question 
them because of the manner of their* formation. The 
hybrids which are picked out to bear the burden of the 
disapproval of the purists seem indeed to be rather 
arbitrarily chosen. Thus it is assumed that the Latin 
suffix -al should be united only to words of obviously 
Latin origin, as in regal from Latin r eg alls ; legal from 
legalis ; communal from communalis, etc. One word 
which violates this rule, and which the purist therefore 
brands as incorrect, is the adjective racial, compounded 
of race and -al. 1 That there is anything wrong or 
blameworthy, however, in combining -al with a root not 
obviously Latin, is disproved by such words as tidal, 
from English tide and -al ; postal, from French post and 
-al, etc., which have been taken into accepted and general 
good use. If racial has not been taken into good use, 
there is no reason, so far as its compositional elements 
are concerned, why it should not be. Likewise the 
suffix -ist, which is ultimately of Greek origin, would 
be restricted by some theorists to composition only with 
words of Greek origin, as chemist, atheist, monist, etc. 
They would, therefore, disapprove of that free extension 

1 The following is typical : " The word racial is an ugly word, the 
strangeness of which is due to our instinctive feeling that the termination 
-al has no business at the end of a word that is not obviously Latin." 
The King's English, London, 1906, p. 22. 

18 



274 MODERN ENGLISH 

of the use of -ist by which it is united to words of Latin, 
English, or other origin, as, for example, words like 
scientist, florist, druggist, dentist, tobacconist, contortionist, 
publicist, folk-lor ist, tourist, typist, elocutionist, base-ballist, 
canoeist, etc. It is not contended that all these words 
are in good, reputable use ; but some of them certainly 
are, and the determination of the questions which are 
and which are not, or which should be and which should 
not be, has nothing to do with the elements of which 
they are composed. In short, the true guide to the use 
of hybrid compounds is to be found, not in the history 
of their etymology, but in their actual value in general 
use. If a hybrid compound expresses an idea ade- 
quately, it is in itself as good a word as any which 
is not a hybrid, since the so-called "pure" word can- 
not do any more. It may be that certain of these 
hybrids cited have not been accepted into good use, 
among which we may perhaps include typist, canoeist, 
educationalist, conversationalist, and others. But where 
this is true, the reason is not to be found in the mere 
fact of hybridity, since many hybrids have been accepted 
into good use. The reasons are undoubtedly various, 
dependent upon the separate history of each word ; but 
what these reasons may be is a matter of little impor- 
tance compared with the fact itself of the acceptance or 
the non-acceptance of the respective words into normal, 
unquestioned use. Such an acceptance is all the justi- 
fication which a hybrid compound, or any other word 
for that matter, needs to make it a reputable word ; 
and the acceptance or rejection of a word of whatever 
kind is a matter almost altogether independent of its 
etymology. 



ENGLISH WORDS 275 

27. Profit and Loss in Word-borrowing. The 

question naturally arises, after a consideration of the ele- 
ments of the English vocabulary, whether or not the 
language has been altogether the gainer by word-bor- 
rowing. That the introduction of foreign words has 
been advantageous in many ways is of course unques- 
tioned. The language has not become bankrupt as a 
result of word-borrowing, as many of its Renascence 
critics feared it would. New ideas have been ap- 
propriated, new standards of thinking and conduct, 
and, as the race has grown in cosmopolitan spirit, 
its vocabulary has kept pace with it. Another gain 
from word-borrowing is to be found in the variety of the 
English vocabulary, especially its richness in synonyms. 
These synonyms, or approximately synonymous words, 
for language does not often preserve two words of 
exactly the same value, enable the discriminating writer 
to express extremely subtle shades of thought and 
feeling. In illustration of such terms we may cite word- 
pairs like the following: science, knowledge; informa- 
tion, wisdom ; virtue, goodness ; malevolence, wickedness; 
benevolence, goodwill ; regal or royal, kingly ; infant, 
child or baby ; adults, elders, etc. Sometimes we have 
four or five words with closely-related meanings, as still, 
placid, quiet, calm, peaceful; or vast, great, large, big. 
Yet each of these has its own special uses. A big man 
is not the same as a great man. 

Another advantage which the English vocabulary has 
by reason of its large number of words of foreign origin, 
especially of Latin origin, is that the language has at its 
disposal two widely different styles of expression, two 
planes of utterance, the one learned or elevated, the 



276 MODERN ENGLISH 

other simple and popular. Perhaps this is not to be 
regarded as an unmixed advantage. Perhaps it would 
be better if the most learned and elevated ideas should 
be all expressed in our simplest vocabulary. Certainly 
it is true that the learned vocabulary of big words is a 
dangerous instrument for the inexperienced writer to 
work with, and of these dangers we shall have more to 
say later. But properly managed, the learned and high- 
sounding Latinized vocabulary serves a very useful pur- 
pose. For one thing, it enables the writer to give 
variety to the cadence of his phrasing. Long words 
may vary and alternate with short ones, according as 
the thought or mood of a passage changes. Certain 
effects of dignity and stateliness can be attained in style 
only by the judicious use of words which by their mere 
bulk and volume of sound are stately and dignified, and 
such words, it generally happens, are of Latin origin. 
The language is like a great organ, and the various 
classes of words are like its stops. The more stops, that 
is, the greater the number of kinds of words, the more 
varied and the richer are the effects which can be pro- 
duced by the artist who is capable of playing upon the 
language. 

An author who was specially successful in his use 
of the high-sounding word, of the rotund, oratorical 
style, was Sir Thomas Browne. His writings have the 
dignity and the stately eloquence that one associates 
with the monumental classic style. In illustration, a 
single sentence may be quoted from his Hydriotaphia, or 
Urne-Buriall, the first edition of which appeared in 
1658. He is discussing the comparative advantages of 
burning and of burying as a means of disposing of the 



ENGLISH WORDS 277 

dead, and says : " Some being of the opinion of Thales, 
that water was the original of all things, thought it most 
equal to submit unto the principle of putrefaction, and 
conclude in a moist relentment." An illustration of 
somewhat unpleasant subject-matter was chosen to show 
how the author's style rises superior to his subject. " To 
submit unto the principle of putrefaction," and " to con- 
clude in a moist relentment " almost reconcile one to the 
thought of mortal decay. The expression, it must be 
confessed, is somewhat remote from the fact, and one is 
a little inclined to forget the matter of the sentence in 
dwelling on the cadence of its phrasing. Indeed the 
same question that troubled the minds of the conserva- 
tive Renascence critics of English arises now in consid- 
ering the style of Sir Thomas Browne and is continually 
arising in the consideration of Modern English style. 
English is always in danger of falling into a toploftical 
manner of expression which soon degenerates into empty 
mannerism. Perhaps it is not necessary to point out 
the fascination which the " grand style " often has for the 
unskilled writer. We may admire it in the pages of a 
master of the method, like Sir Thomas Browne, without 
setting it up as a general model of English style. 

But the long words of the vocabulary lend themselves 
to other effects than those which are dignified and 
stately. By contrast with the simple vocabulary, the 
long word playfully used often has humorous value. 
This sort of humor, polysyllabic humor as it may be 
called, also has its dangers : it is an easy trick, and, like 
most easy tricks, tends to be overworked. Always to 
speak of one's house as " a domicile," or of a horse as 
"an equine quadruped," is as cheap and tiresome a 



278 MODERN ENGLISH 

form of humor as constant punning. Sparingly used, 
however, the polysyllable is not without a touch of 
quaintness and charm. Charles Lamb is fond of this 
humorous device, tho he also is occasionally guilty of 
a too abundant use of it. As an instance of his more 
successful manner, we may quote the following para- 
graph from the opening of his essay on The Praise of 
Chimney Sweeps : " I like to meet a sweep — understand 
me — not a grown sweeper — old chimney-sweepers are 
by no means attractive — but one of these tender novices, 
blooming through their first nigritude, the maternal 
washings not quite effaced from the cheek — such as 
come forth with the dawn, or somewhat earlier, with 
their little professional notes sounding like the peep-peep 
of a young sparrow ; or liker to the matin lark should 
I pronounce them, in their aerial ascents not seldom 
anticipating the sunrise ? " 

By restating the ideas of this sentence in short words 
of native origin, one sees how much the flavor of it is 
dependent on just the words which Lamb has chosen. 
In a simple native vocabulary one would miss the oc- 
casional playful contrast between the loftiness of the 
diction and the lowliness of the subject, which lends it 
its chief charm. 

Another advantage which the language has in its learned 
borrowed words consists in the fact that it can thus give 
to scientific objects and ideas names which have not been 
traditionally attached to other objects and ideas, and 
which have not acquired through long use a group of 
connotations and meanings which the scientific word 
should not have. Thus, the word zoology, a compound 
word of Greek origin, according to the meaning of its 



ENGLISH WORDS 279 

elements might be translated literally as " life-lore," a 
meaning which is decidedly too wide for zoology, that 
science being concerned only with the forms of animal 
life. So also " star-lore " as a name for astronomy is not 
a good name, since it connotes a great many popular 
notions and astrological superstitions that astronomy is 
not concerned with. The word inoculate means a very 
definite process of modern medicine. Etymologically it 
comes from Latin in-, the preposition, compounded with 
the noun oculus, " eye," also " bud of a plant." Its 
original meaning in English was to graft by budding, 
from which the meaning of imparting the germs of a 
disease for the purpose of preventing the disease is a 
metaphorical derivation. In Modern English, however, 
inoculate is a word with a single, specific value, the best 
kind of word that science could have. And so often it 
would be extremely difficult to find simple native words 
as names for scientific ideas that would not connote either 
more or less than it was necessary to express. 

Borrowed words, being without the connotations which 
come of long and familiar use, can often be employed for 
new ideas with less danger of prejudice or misunderstand- 
ing than the native words of the vocabulary. Thus it is 
an advantage to have the word "conductor" to name 
the person in command of a train, the corresponding 
English word "leader" not answering the purpose, and 
" captain " being limited to the commander of a ship. So 
also we may speak of a a regent " of a university, for 
example, whereas the word " ruler " would imply a kind 
of authority not intended. Manufacturers of commer- 
cial products have seen the value of this use of foreign 
words, and frequently avoid prejudice against their wares 



280 MODERN ENGLISH 

merely by giving strange names for familiar objects. Thus 
the product known as " cottolene," a substitute for lard 
made from the cotton seed, means simple "cotton oil." 
Other examples taken from the names of food-stuffs are 
cited above. Sometimes, however, the use of a big word 
for a familiar idea or object is due merely to false modesty 
or affectation, as when one speaks of a fee as an honora- 
rium, or of wages as salary or emolument. Just when 
wages reach the dignity of being properly called salary is 
doubtless a matter of opinion ; but each word has its 
jDroper place, and the fault of using either for the other is 
equally great. It is hardly necessary to speak of a barber 
as a " tonsorial artist." And all perhaps except the pro- 
prietor will agree that the sign " Horse-shoeing Parlours," 
which for many years adorned the window of a New 
York blacksmith's shop, is a little more elegant than the 
occasion required. 

On the other hand, it is certain that the large Latin 
element in the English vocabulary is the source of some 
danger and often of weakness in the use of the English 
language. In the first place, there is the danger of losing 
the sense of an intimate knowledge of the meaning of 
words. Borrowed words often do not have the familiar 
associations, the certainty of effect, and the precision 
and exactness of meaning which native words are likely 
to have. 1 Often they seem not to be completely assimi- 

1 English in this respect does not compare favorably with German. 
"There is nothing which cannot be expressed in German by a native word, 
homely, picturesque, appealing straight to the intelligence alike of learned 
and unlearned. The phraseology of abstract thought is concrete here 
[i. e., in German] ; it is also of native growth, not imported from Greek or 
Latin. Instead of ' incarnation,' Germans speak of Fleischwerden or Ver- 
fleischung. Instead of ' relation,' ' definition,' they use Verhttltniss, 
Bestimmung; instead of ' concept/ Begriff. Some of their philosophical ex- 



ENGLISH WORDS 281 

lated, and are thus used with a looseness and vagueness 
not characteristic of the native words. A familiar in- 
stance is the word aggravate (from Latin ad and gravis), 
which etymologically and in good literary use means 
"to make worse," but which colloquially, and perhaps 
carelessly, tends to be used, especially in the form ag- 
gravating, in the vaguer and more general sense of 
" annoy." Likewise, incisive is a word which should 
have a clear and specific meaning, but which again is 
often used in such general senses as " correct," " appro- 
priate," " to the point." Other instances are predicament, 
used as the equivalent of "plight"; oblivious, strictly 
" forgetful," used in the sense of " unobservant " or 
" disregardful of," as in " oblivious of his presence," 
meaning " not having observed his presence " (Thomas 
Nelson Page), or " oblivious to the cold wind " {Saturday 
Evening Post). The word stupendous is often used as 
though it meant simply " large " ; and unique, which 
strictly should mean "single," "the only one of its 
kind," frequently degenerates into vague meanings like 
" strange," " excellent," or " ingenious," as in " quite a 
unique collection of books " {Pall Mall G-azette) ; " the 

church gave a unique entertainment last night." 

The word balance becomes equivalent to " remainder " in 
" After August you may expect cool weather for the 
balance of the Summer." The general sense of " severe " 



pressions, such, for instance, as Weltanschauung [literally world beholding, 
i. e., philosophy of life], display an inimitable aptitude. Even the terms 
of physical science are not remote from common life. Schicefelsaure ex- 
plains itself more easily than Acidus Sulphuricus [i. e., sulphuric acid]." 
Symonds, Essays, Speculative and Suggestive, Vol. I, p. 313. Eor further 
discussion of the same point, see Educational Review, March, 1907, pp. 
231-233. 



282 MODERN ENGLISH 

is often given to the word exemplary, as in " Their pun- 
ishment was swift and exemplary " ; in careful use, how- 
ever, the word means " exemplifying," " furnishing an 
example." So also the word condign, which should mean 
" deserved," " merited," is often used in vague senses of 
" heavy," " severe," as in " They visited him with condign 
punishment." An educated person, one of the editors of a 
large city newspaper, once remarked to the author that he 
was " impervious to riding backwards in trains," meaning 
that he was not unpleasantly affected by it. The poster 
of a land-improvement company advertised the " sale of 
well-situated and eligible properties." The use of primi- 
tive in the sense merely of " early," and of universal in 
the sense of " common " or " widespread," is often found 
even in somewhat scholarly writing. More popular is 
the usage of the man who " wishes to relate a circum- 
stance that occurred," meaning he wishes to tell some- 
thing that happened. In his next sentence this man 
would probably say that this "circumstance" was 
" phenomenal," when he meant only that it was strange 
or remarkable. The word temperate has practically 
lost its proper meaning in the phrase " strictly tem- 
perate," used of a person who is a total abstainer. Sev- 
eral years ago the general post-office sent out a placard 
for display in local post-offices, stating that registered 
letters " require the name of the sender to be endorsed 
on the face of the envelope." 1 Literally, to endorse 
a thing on its face is a contradiction in terms. The 
word in the placard had weakened to the meaning merely 
" to write " or " inscribe." 

There is, therefore, always this danger of using more 

1 Tucker, Our Common Speech, p. 30. 



ENGLISH WORDS 283 

or less unfamiliar words in vague and indefinite senses 
when they should have, and in the best use of the lan- 
guage do have, definite and specific senses, the danger of 
thinking and speaking in loose and general terms instead 
of in the exactly fitting terms. Closely related to this is 
an abuse of the language already mentioned which the 
young writer is likely to be guilty of, that is, the use of 
words for themselves alone. There are so many " fine " 
words, so many learned words, in the English vocabulary, 
that one is sometimes in danger of becoming enamored 
of words for their own sake, of using them because they 
sound well, even tho they mean nothing, or are en- 
tirely inappropriate to what one is speaking or writing 
about. This use of big words is given in works on 
composition the ironical name of " fine writing." Sty- 
listically the use of " fine " words is bad English because 
it takes words which have their right and appropriate 
places and uses them where they do not belong. Such 
methods are comparable to those of a painter who should 
try to paint a pink flower by using his most brilliant 
crimson color. He not only does not paint his pink 
flower, but he has no color left when he wishes to pro- 
duce his strongest effects. As has been stated, it is 
usually the inexperienced writer who is liable to fall into 
this error, the best corrective of which is to observe the 
ineffectiveness of such English upon any reader whose 
good opinion is worth having. To persist in the use of 
"fine" words out of their proper places is to convict 
one's self of insensibility to the effects produced by lan- 
guage, and one who is always striving to be fine succeeds 
only in being cheap, tawdry, and vulgar. 

To know when not to use the big word in English is, 



284 MODERN ENGLISH 

therefore, one of the best safeguards a writer can have. 
Indeed, it may be set down as a rule : Never use a long 
word when a shorter one will do as well. The opposite 
tendency, that is, to use as many and as long words as 
you can, has been well described by the novelist Barrie 
in his satire on what he calls " newspaper English." A 
candidate is supposed to be up for an examination in 
journalism, and one of the questions asked is, how to 
translate the following sentence into " newspaper Eng- 
lish " : " The house was soon on fire ; much sympathy is 
expressed with the sufferers." The answer to the ques- 
tion is this : "Ina moment the edifice was enveloped in 
shooting tongues of flame : the appalling catastrophe has 
plunged the whole street into the gloom of night." 1 
Lowell, in the Introduction to the Second Series of 
Biglow Papers has a similar set of phrases, one being 
of the old style and the other of the new style of news- 
paper-writing. Thus the old style phrase, "A great 
crowd came to see," becomes in the new style, "A vast 
concourse was assembled to witness." "Man fell" is 
translated in the new style into " Individual was pre- 
cipitated"; and "Sent for the doctor" becomes "Called 
into requisition the services of the family physician." 
For the purposes of satire, Barrie and Lowell have of 
course given somewhat exaggerated, tho none the less 
instructive, examples of "fine writing." But "newspa- 
per English " is merely our modern cant term for a tend- 
ency of English style that has been present ever since 
the days of Caxton. The English of newspapers is not 
always bad. Indeed, a fair case may be made for the 
opinion that it is more generally good than bad. The 

1 J. M. Barrie, When a Man 's Single. 



ENGLISH WORDS 285 

English of a reputable city paper is usually direct, 
straightforward, standing in close relation to the fact 
which it narrates. Through the inexperience of edi- 
tors and reporters the writing of the newspapers may 
often be bombastic and otherwise inadequate; but these 
faults are of course not greater than that of the second- 
rate author whose style is "literary" at the expense of 
directness and sincerity. That the problem of style in 
English with respect to the Latinized vocabulary is es- 
sentially the same, whether we look at it from the point 
of view of " newspaper English," of literary style, or of 
conversation, is indicated by the well-known anecdote of 
Dr. Johnson, recorded by Boswell. The little story 
shows clearly the vicious tendency of mind which every 
English writer has to struggle against. Dr. Johnson, 
according to Boswell, was speaking of Buckingham's 
satirical play, The Rehearsal, and said, " It has not wit 
enough to keep it sweet," adding after a moment's re- 
flection, " It has not vitality enough to preserve it from 
putrefaction." 



VII 

ENGLISH GRAMMAR 

1. Modern English Grammar. The word gram- 
mar, as it is understood by the scientific student of 
language, is a term of wide inclusion. The grammar 
of a language, in the broadest sense, includes a discus- 
sion of all the facts of the language, — sounds, inflections, 
syntax, excepting only vocabulary. Indeed, many sci- 
entific grammars never get beyond the consideration of 
sounds and inflections. There is, however, a less general 
and more popular sense of the word grammar, which is 
the meaning intended in its use in the present chapter. 
This is a use of the word which makes it practically 
equivalent in meaning to correct syntax. We say a 
person speaks grammatically when he uses such syntax 
as is accepted as standard use, and he speaks ungram- 
matically when he does violence to standard custom. 

In modern times the tendency of grammar in this 
sense has been towards an increasing rigidity in the 
grammatical system. This applies both to written and 
to spoken English. In both, the limits of permissible 
variation in usage are narrower to-day than they ever 
have been before. The custom of the language has 
tended to establish one " standard " or " correct " form 
for each grammatical category, and then to adhere to 
this form. The difference between present and earlier 
usage can be seen by comparing Modern English with 



ENGLISH GRAMMAR 287 

the English of Shakspere. In Modern English we have, 
for example, only one form for the third plural present 
of verbs. Shakspere, however, tho he generally used 
what we now regard as the standard form, could also form 
plurals in -s, as in Tempest, V, i, 16 : " His tears runs 
down his beard." He also formed third plurals in -en, 
as in Midsummer - Nighf s Dream, II, i, 56 : 

And then the whole quire hold their hips and laugh, 
And ivaxen in their mirth. 

And occasionally we find third plurals in -th. Shak- 
spere thus had four ways of forming his third plurals, 
and these various forms he was at liberty to choose 
from apparently much as the need of the moment im- 
pelled him. A similar freedom exists with respect to 
many other grammatical categories. These various 
forms are generally historical, but where later English 
has chosen one of a number of historical forms to the 
exclusion of the rest, earlier English frequently em- 
ploys several different forms side by side. 1 Sometimes 
the discarded earlier form of expression persists in 
Modern English, but is regarded as characteristic of 
the popular or vulgar speech. Thus the double com- 
parative is , now frequently heard in the speech of the 
uneducated and of children; in Shakspere, as in Mer- 
chant of Venice, IV, i, 251, " How much more elder 
art thou than thy looks," it was a construction in as 
good standing as our so-called " correct " single com- 
parative. In vulgar English we also have the verb 
learn used transitively. In Elizabethan English learn 

1 Attention has been called above (see pp. 89 ff.) to the earlier use of 
the two forms of the pronoun thou and you, Modern English having limited 
itself, to its own disadvantage, almost entirely to the second form. 



288 MODERN ENGLISH 

could be either intransitive or transitive, an illustration 
of the latter use being found in the King James transla- 
tion of the Bible, Psalm cxix, 66: " O learn me true 
understanding and knowledge." 

It is interesting, also, to compare the standards of 
spoken English of earlier periods with that of Modern 
English. For this purpose the comedies of the seven- 
teenth and early eighteenth centuries offer abundant 
material. The dialog in these comedies is very real- 
istic, coming as near to being an actual transcript of 
the speech and manners of its times as English litera- 
ture has ever done. Perhaps, also, no later period of 
English literature has equaled this dialog in its vi- 
vacity, its ease, and its truthfulness. Yet the characters, 
even when we use for illustration only such as represent 
educated and cultivated persons, are very free indeed in 
their treatment of the King's English. In the works of 
Sir George Etherege occur such constructions as the 
following: 'Tis them ; It must be them ; It may be him ; 
let you and I, and let thee and I ; all you '11 ha? me, for 
" all you will have me." 1 In Farquhar's Beaux Strate- 
gem, Act II, we have the following : Then I, Sir, tips 
me the Verger with half a crown. Frequently the same 
author uses abbreviations like a 9 n't we, or a'n't I, for 
the full forms are not we and am not I The full form 
for I have not is contracted into I han't. A few further 
illustrations may be cited from the comedies of Van- 
brugh. In a passage of serious prose, one of his pref- 
aces, 2 we find forms like the following : they '11, I'm, 

1 The Works of Sir George Etherege, ed. A. Wilson Verity, London, 
1888. 

2 Vanbrugh, ed. W. C. Wood, Vol. I, pp. 7-9. 



ENGLISH GRAMMAR 289 

'twas, find 'em. These, of course, are common enough 
in Modern English colloquial speech, but are now prac- 
tically never used in written style. In the dialog of 
the comedies themselves the following may be noted: 
' Tis well, admit 'm ; a purpose, for " on purpose " ; on 't, 
for " on it " ; These shoes an't ugly, but they don't fit 
me; I han't, for "I haven't"; don't as third singular 
present, frequently ; 'twixt you and I ; in these kind of 
matters ; be?i% for " be not " ; by who, for " by whom " ; 
sha't, for " shalt " ; blow'd, for the preterite- of the verb ; 
with my Lord Rake and I; but was ye never in love, 
sir f nor is it me he exposes. Many of these usages are 
such as exist to-day in the popular speech. They are 
not cited here as indicating a low general tone of cul- 
ture in the comedies from which they are taken. On 
the contrary, conversation was never more brisk and 
effective than it is in these comedies ; wit and satire 
have never been expressed more certainly than here. 
The examples have been cited merely to show the 
change which has come over English speech. Conver- 
sation now tends to be more precise and formal. Mere 
correctness or regularity counts with many people for 
more than it formerly did. That there has been, how- 
ever, a corresponding gain in vivacity, lightness, and 
spontaneity, one would hesitate to say. 

2. Inflectional Change. With the setting up of a 
hard and fast rigid system of grammar, naturally the 
tendencies towards inflectional change, which are so 
characteristic of earlier periods of English, have been 
almost completely checked. The most important con- 
temporary change is that which is affecting the sub- 
junctive mood. Practically, the only construction in 

19 



290 MODERN ENGLISH 

Modern English in which the subjunctive is in living, 
natural use, is in the condition contrary to fact, " If I 
were you, I shouldn't do it." Elsewhere, altho it 
may still be employed with some subtle distinctions of 
thought, there is always a trace of consciousness in its 
use ; it has more or less literary or archaic or affected 
flavor. It seems likely, therefore, with the continuance 
of the present tendencies, that the subjunctive as a dis- 
tinctive inflectional form will disappear, except, perhaps, 
in the one construction noted. Even here, however, the 
indicative form is used in a surprisingly large number of 
instances in good modern authors. A few examples may 
be cited : If I was Cadogan, I would have a peerage for 
this day's work (Thackeray) ; It poured all night, as if 
the sky was coming down (Matthew Arnold) ; I think 
if I was beginning again, I should begin with a serious 
study of Paracelsus (Life and Letters of Dean Church); 
I should feel more sympathy with Germany if it was 
only a question of its being welded together (ibid.). 1 
Such usages, which seem indeed perfectly natural, may 
make one doubt whether the subjunctive will be able to 
maintain itself even in this last stronghold of the condi- 
tion contrary to fact. The feeling for the natural use of 
the subjunctive being thus largely obscured or lost, one 
finds it occasionally where it is appropriate by no test 
either of past or present use, as in the following : " Her- 
rick, devout worshipper of his pagan saint though he 
were, has left hardly a phrase which is not sweet with 
his own dainty country melody" (B. Wendell, The 
Temper of the Seventeenth Century, p. 149). The writer 

1 See Smith, " The Indicative in an Unreal Condition," Modern Philol- 
ogy, V, 361-364 (January, 1908), for these and numerous other examples. 



ENGLISH GRAMMAR 291 

of this sentence did not mean to say that Herrick was 
not a worshiper of his pagan saint ; apparently he uses 
the subjunctive here as result of that confusion of mind 
which often arises from a vague consciousness of some- 
thing to be desired or avoided, and which often as not 
leads one to choose the thing to be avoided. 

Occasional variation in the principal parts of verbs is 
also to be observed. The principal parts of get are get, 
got, got, or gotten. Neither got nor gotten is historically 
the correct form for the past participle, which should be 
geten. But the vowels of the past participle and of the 
past tense, as frequently happened, have been leveled 
under one form ; and in the case of got as past participle, 
the leveling has been extended to the - en ending. The 
form gotten is often criticised as an Americanism, and 
it is undoubtedly a more general American use than Brit- 
ish. The authentic story is told of an American who 
sent a telegram to a friend saying that he had gotten 
tickets for the theater that night, which the British 
operator transmitted " Have got ten tickets for the 
theater to-night," to the confusion of the ten when they 
came to occupy two seats. But it has already been 
pointed out that the -en ending is historically correct. 
It is supported, moreover, by the forms forgotten, he- 
gotten, ill-gotten, etc. Unless one arbitrarily elevates 
one section of English usage to the position of standard, 
there seems to be no reason why the form gotten should 
not be allowed to exist. It is as natural in that word as 
are such past participles as driven, ridden, ivritten, etc. 
There are some constructions, however, in which the 
form got is the only one in customary use. We say " I 've 
got to go," never " I 've gotten to go," as the British 



292 MODERN ENGLISH 

critic sometimes asserts. There is of course no reason 
why got should not be used as the past participle of the 
verb when the natural custom of the language calls for 
it — and the same may be said of gotten. 

The past participle of the verb drink is variously given 
as drank and drunk. Historically drunk is the better 
form, following the class of begin, began, begun; sing, 
sang, sung; run, ran, run, and other verbs. The form 
drunk, however, seems to be objected to because it sug- 
gests the adjective use of the word. In spite of this, the 
weight of usage still favors the form drunk as past parti- 
ciple. Altho there is considerable uncertainty in the 
popular speech with respect to the forms of a number 
of past tenses, the past of blow being often made Mowed, 
of begin being made begun, of catch being made catched, 
etc., such forms are now considered as gross errors in 
the standard or correct speech. Where formally there 
was liberty of choice, as, for example, began or begun, 
for the past tense of begin, the custom of standard 
Modern English has recognized only one correct form. 
Attention may be called, however, to the fact that the 
strict rule of the grammarians is not always followed in 
practice by good speakers and writers. The past tense 
of the verb lie is conventionally lay ; but the form laid 
is also in very general use, especially among persons not 
held in restraint by academic traditions. An illustration 
may be cited : " Apparently the bear laid in wait beside 
the game trails, along which the deer wandered " 
(Roosevelt, Hunting the Grisly, p. 60). The same di- 
versity of use exists with respect to the past tense of 
dive as dived or dove. The former is the conventionally 
"correct" form, but the latter, following the analogy of 



ENGLISH GRAMMAR 293 

drive, drove, ride, rode, etc., is a natural formation and, in 
spoken use at least, is perhaps more frequently heard 
than the former. An example may be cited from the 
source just quoted : " The little animal . . . struck out 
at him like an angry cat, dove into the bushes, and was 
seen no more " (Roosevelt, Hunting the Grisly, p. 111). 
Modern grammar has attempted to regulate according 
to a strict system the use of shall and will in future and 
other verb-phrases, but not with complete success. It is 
not the present writer's intention to elaborate a detailed 
statement of the rules for the so-called " correct" use of 
these words. Many such have been given, all very com- 
plicated, all more or less different, and all colored by the 
theories of the grammarian or rhetorician from whom 
they have proceeded. Beyond the simple rule that shall 
is used, according to the theory of formal grammar, in 
the first person, present tense, singular and plural, for 
the expression of simple futurity, and will in the second 
and third persons, present tense, singular and plural, for 
the same purpose, and that should and would are respec- 
tively used in the past tense, where shall and will are used 
in the present, it is not necessary to go. The other uses, 
for example will in the first person and shall in the 
second and third, are generally unmistakably deter- 
mined by what the speaker wishes to express ; they are, 
moreover, so much colored by the mood of the moment, 
the distinctions of meaning are often so subtle, that it is 
hardly possible to reduce these to a practical systematic 
statement, even if it were desirable. If grammar were, 
as it is indeed sometimes assumed to be, a strictly logical 
system which could be worked out in the quiet of the 
study, and then imposed upon the speakers of the 



294 MODERN ENGLISH 

language, the elaboration of a complicated set of rules 
for the use of shall and will might be worth while. But 
if grammar is, as we assume it to be, the statement of 
the usage of the people who employ the language in the 
practical and effective communication of thought, any 
theoretical dogmatizings as to the way in which the 
words shall and will, or any others, ought to be used, 
will be worse than useless. If we observe the facts of the 
actual usage of shall and will in speech we shall find the 
greatest diversity. We shall find that there is a body of 
careful speakers who, either through persistent instruc- 
tion in formal grammar or through tradition derived from 
such instruction, tend to use these words consistently in 
their conventionally recognized standard forms. In cer- 
tain restricted communities the standard usage has thus 
become to a considerable extent the natural popular 
custom. With the great majority of speakers, however, 
with those who must be counted as the average, intelli- 
gent population of the country, the greatest freedom 
prevails. Indeed one may say that where a strong aca- 
demic standardizing influence has not been brought to 
bear, I will is as generally used for the future as I shall. 
In the face of these facts it will obviously not do simply 
to dismiss I will as " vulgar " and " incorrect.'' It is in- 
correct only according to the system of theoretical, not 
of practical, grammar, and the notion of its incorrectness 
is the comparatively recent outgrowth of the modern 
grammarian's striving after a rigid regulation of the 
forms of speech. The simple fact seems to be that this is 
one of the instances in which the conventional grammar, 
having raised a special and not universal usage to the 
position of standard, has not yet succeeded in imposing 



ENGLISH GRAMMAR 295 

its rules upon the speech even of those who in general 
follow the rules of conventional or standard grammar. 
Whether in the end it will succeed in doing so, it is not 
easy to foresee. At present it seems just as likely that 
conventional grammar will change its rules, as that the 
great body of those who now use the " incorrect" forms 
will change their practice. It is especially difficult in 
this instance to impose the standard forms on colloquial 
speech, because through the habit of contraction the feel- 
ing for all distinction between the forms is largely ob- 
scured. Thus 1 7Z, you 7Z, he HI may as well stand for 1 
will, etc., as for I shall, etc. The safest guide, therefore, in 
the use of shall and will is, as ever, the guide of practical 
use. In practical use it will be observed that in formal, 
or literary, or careful English, a somewhat definite 
" cult " has grown up with respect to the use of these 
words which is often made, by the followers of it, the 
test of education, even of refinement. The practical ad- 
vantage of knowing the rules of this cult, even tho 
they are to a high degree artificial, is obvious. On the 
other hand, the observation of the widespread popular 
usage should prevent one from dogmatizing too posi- 
tively on the matter of correctness, should even en- 
courage one to a disagreement with the strict law of 
the formal or literary usage. 1 

1 The usual statement of the grammarians is that Scotch, Irish, and 
Americans have great diffculty in acquiring the " faultless " use of shall 
and will. This means, of course, that Scotch, Irish, and Americans are in- 
correct in their use of shall and will only because they are measured by a 
British standard. By that standard there are innumerable ways in which 
American usage would be incorrect. Any one interested in the intricacies 
of the shall-and-\A ill puzzle may consult the work of Dr. Gerald Molloy, 
The Irish Difficulty: Shall and Will, London, 1897, in which the author 
has taken two hundred pages in the attempt to lay bare its subtleties. 



296 MODERN ENGLISH 

In the noun the only inflectional changes of impor- 
tance are those affecting plurals of foreign origin. Here 
there is more or less tendency to give the foreign plurals 
the form of English words, with the regular -s, -es end- 
ing of plurals. Thus the plurals of index, appendix,focus, 
criterion, may be either the foreign forms indices, appen- 
dices, foci, criteria, or better, the English forms indexes, 
appendixes, focuses, criterions. In some words, like gym- 
nasium, bandit, cherub, the English plurals gymnasiums, 
bandits, and cherubs, instead of gymnasia, banditti, and 
cherubim (used only with reference to the Biblical cheru- 
bim), are the only ones generally used. In general the 
tendency to substitute English for foreign plurals is one 
that should be encouraged. 

In the instance of the word data, a Latin plural from 
a little used singular datum, the strong popular tend- 
ency is to take the word as a singular. This tendency 
is helped by the fact that the word has no corresponding 
singular in general use. It is consequently understood 
as a singular, equivalent in meaning to " information," 
as in the sentence, " This data has been furnished on 
the understanding that it will not be published." Al- 
tho historically inexact, the meaning has become so 
general among those who employ the word in colloquial 
speech that it must be regarded as an established usage. 
There is a similar tendency to use the plural phenomena 
as a singular, upon which a new plural, phenomenas, is 
then formed. This tendency is held well in check, how- 
ever, by the learned character of the word phenomenon ; 
as it becomes more popular, an increasing use of phenom- 
ena as a singular may be expected. 1 

1 For examples of phenomena as a singular and phenomenas as plural, see 
the New English Dictionary under phenomenon. On the general topic, see 



ENGLISH GRAMMAR 297 

3. Word Order. To take the place of the older 
method of binding the parts of the sentence together by 
means of concord in inflectional endings, Modern Eng- 
lish, having lost almost all its inflectional endings, has 
been compelled to substitute instead the order of the 
words in the sentence. The principles determining the 
word-order of Modern English are two, first, that ideas 
shall be expressed in the order of their logical succes- 
sion ; and second, that related ideas shall stand in close 
proximity to each other. By the first principle English 
has settled upon an almost invariable succession of the 
main parts in the structure of the sentence. The main 
scheme of subject + verb + object is but little obscured 
by the insertion of modifying parts and is not departed 
from except in occasional interrogative and exclamatory 
sentences. In colloquial speech, where the sentences 
are naturally shorter and simpler than in the more con- 
scious literary style, the simple subject + verb + object 
structure is almost the only one employed. It is, in 
fact, the only one that can be employed; for even in 
sentences in which the forms of the words indicate their 
cases, for example, / saw him and Him saw 7, that rigid 
feeling for one set form which is generally characteristic 
of Modern English permits only the first, or natural, 
order of words. 

Professor Matthews' essay, " The Naturalization of Foreign Words," in 
Parts of Speech, pp. 165-183. In the case of the word opera, which is ety- 
mologically the plural of the Latin neuter noun opus, both the popular and 
the standard speech accept the plural form as singular, forming a new 
plural operas after the common analogy of English words. Other in- 
stances of a similar nature are the word differentia, by etymology a Latin 
singular noun of the first declension, but often used as a plural in Eng- 
lish ; insignia, by etymology a Latin plural but used in English indiffer- 
ently as singular or plural ; and memoranda, by etymology a plural, but 
often used as a singular. 



298 MODERN ENGLISH 

The second principle requiring that related ideas shall 
be expressed in close proximity to each other is a neces- 
sary result of the importance of word-order and of the 
leading part which logic of situation plays in Modern 
English. If the interrelations of words in a group are 
to be determined by the logic of the ideas which they 
express, naturally those ideas which are closely related 
must be brought close to each other in expression, since 
the logical connection would otherwise be obscured by 
the introduction of extraneous ideas. We thus demand 
that adjectives stand near their nouns, usually immedi- 
ately before them ; that pronouns stand near their ante- 
cedents ; that adverbs stand close to their modified 
words ; and that verbs stand as near as possible to the 
subjects which determine their number and person. In 
the ordering of phrases and clauses also, the parts must 
be arranged in the order of their logical sequence. 
Humorous illustrations (for example, " Piano to rent by 
a lady with solid mahogany legs ") of the result of not 
heeding this rule abound in the grammars and rhetorics. 
But the fact that we find such departures from a fixed 
word- order ludicrous, even when the logic of the situa- 
tion makes the meaning perfectly clear, as in the above 
example, shows what a strong hold mere proximity and 
order of words have acquired in Modern English speech. 

This feeling for order of words in some instances 
comes into conflict with certain traditional grammatical 
rules. A stock illustration of this is the " split infini- 
tive." It is one of the conservative traditional rules of 
Modern English grammar that nothing shall stand be- 
tween the infinitive and its sign to. But it is difficult 
to see the logical justification for this rule. By origin 



ENGLISH GRAMMAR 299 

the sign to is a preposition, and the infinitive which fol- 
lows it is by origin a verbal noun, which, in the inflec- 
tional stage of the language, was inflected, like any other 
noun, for the dative case after its preposition. More- 
over, in the similar construction of the infinitive in -ing 
after a preposition, no question is ever raised. If one 
may say " His plan for heavily taxing the people did not 
meet with approval," why may not one as well say " It 
is difficult to quicldy convert these securities into cash " ? 
Parallel to the construction of the split infinitive is a 
sentence like the following, in which the adverb now is 
made part of the prepositional phrase : " Such a periodi- 
cal is what I have been seeking diligently for now many 
years. " Indeed the principle of Modern English gram- 
mar that a modifying word shall stand as near to the 
modified word as possible often favors the insertion of 
an adverb between the infinitive and its sign. Examples 
of " split infinitive " can of course be found in the writ- 
ing of good authors. The best writers have always 
availed themselves of the privilege of placing an adverb 
before the infinitive when the effective exposition of 
their thought required it. In contemporary speech the 
" split infinitive " is most frequently heard in the usage 
of those speakers who give much attention to the pre- 
cise definition and expression of their thought, especially 
lawyers, but who are not too much restrained by the 
injunctions of the academic grammarian. It is this lat- 
ter who is mainly responsible for the rigid prohibition 
against the use of the u split infinitive." Like the rule 
for the use of shall and will, this is another of those 
traditional and theoretical laws which has acquired re- 
spect and authority merely because it has been so often 



300 MODERN ENGLISH 

dogmatically stated. By the test of actual use and by 
the test of the feeling for the Modern English idiom, 
the " split infinitive " is not only a natural, but often an 
admirable, form of expression. 1 

Word-order sometimes determines case contrary to the 
usual rules of grammar. Thus from early times the 
nominative form of the interrogative pronoun, instead 
of the grammatical objective, has been used in sentences 
like " Who do you mean ? " Shakspere, in Coriolanus, 
II, i, 8, writes : Who does the wolf love f where the con- 
text shows that Wlw is to be taken as the object of love. 
Examples are frequent in colloquial English of all later 
periods. According to the rules of conventional gram- 
mar, they are of course simply " incorrect." They vio- 
late the rigid rule that the object of a verb must be in the 
objective case, and the objective case of who is whom. But 
is nothing to be said for " Who do you mean ? " The jus- 
tification of the construction, so far as it goes, is to be 
found in the explanation of its origin. The type-form of 
the English sentence, as has been stated, follows the 
scheme of subject + verb + object. The general feeling 
thus comes to be that the word which precedes the verb 
is the subject word, or at least the subject form, and 
that which follows, the object ; and it is an instinctive 
tendency to make all sentences adapt themselves to this 
typical structure. Naturally enough, therefore, who, 
when it comes first in interrogative sentences, is given 
the subject form, not only in those many sentences in 
which it is the grammatical subject, as in " Who called 

1 For a full discussion, with numerous examples, of the split infinitive, 
see Lounsbury, The Standard of Usage in English, pp. 240-268 ; Hall, 
American Journal of Philology, III, No. 9, 1882; Borst, Englische Studien, 
XXXVII, 386-393! 



ENGLISH GRAMMAR 301 

yesterday ? " but also in sentences in which it is the 
grammatical object, as in " Who did you call ? " Since 
this latter construction follows the logical tendency of 
modern grammar, by that test it is correct ; and since, 
moreover, it is in wide colloquial use, it can be con- 
demned in practice only by the believer in the rigid 
theoretical system of grammar. 

Another instance in which order of words has been 
influential in determining the form of a case is the con- 
struction " It is me." This usage may be said to have 
fairly won its way, at least into good colloquial speech. 
Other similar forms, like " It is her, him, them," have 
perhaps not been quite so successful, altho they fol- 
low the same tendency. In these sentences the type- 
form, subject + verb + object, has caused even the word 
after the copulative verb to assume the objective form. 
So strong is this feeling for the objective as the case 
of all words after the verb that the traditionally correct 
" It is I " has come to be regarded as too correct, that 
is, as somewhat pedantic and affected. 

An interesting conflict of tendencies arises in such 
sentences as " I had no expectation of him doing that," 
or "I had no expectation of his doing that." Both 
usages are widely current in colloquial speech, altho the 
rigid grammarian strives to make the forms with the 
possessive, that is, " of his doing that," the only correct 
form. This is especially true when the -ing word is pre- 
ceded by a pronoun. Otherwise, even in good literary 
style, one finds the non-possessive form frequently used, 
as in the following examples : " This impossibility of 
one man producing work in exactly the same manner as 
another makes all deliberate attempts at imitation as- 



302 MODERN ENGLISH 

sume the form of parody or caricature " (Symonds, 
Essays Speculative and Suggestive, II, 7) ; "I can only 
suggest a reason for the effect being so much greater in 
my own case " (Hudson, Idle Bays in Patagonia, p. 
226) ; " he points out the necessity of style being fash- 
ioned to the matter " (G. Gregory Smith, Elizabethan 
Critical Essays, p. xlii) ; " the fact is that, strictly 
speaking, there is no such thing as a language becoming 
corrupt " (Lounsbury, The Standard of Usage, p. 57) ; 
" the negro in New England very likely comes of a free 
father and grandfather, and the fact of a negro being free 
a generation or two back was pretty sure sign of his be- 
longing to the more energetic class of his fellows " (Free- 
man, Some Impressions, p. 148); " there had been a scene 
between his father and himself, which ended in his father 
disinheriting him " (New York Times) ; "there is some- 
thing droll in the notion of a Tax Commissioner being 
not too politely bowed out of office " (ibid.) ; " the 
shortness of his left leg prevented him running " (ibid.) ; 
" occasioned by the latter using an old school-fellow's 
privilege " (Jespersen, Growth and Structure, p. 237) ; 
" the Wagnerites who used to prate about Italian opera 
being dead" (New York Evening Posf). 

The logical origin of the two forms of expression, the 
one with the possessive, the other with the non-posses- 
sive form of noun or pronoun, is not difficult to see. In 
a sentence like " I was used to him being so excited," 
the instinctive feeling is that the preposition to should 
be followed by an objective case, "him," especially so 
since the word which follows " him " is not a simple 
noun, but that peculiar kind of noun which we call a 
verbal, a noun that possesses as much the value of verb 



ENGLISH GRAMMAR 803 

as of noun. The sentence is thus adapted to the form 
of the parallel sentence, " It was usual for him to be so 
excited," in which both " him " and " to be " are the 
independent objects of the preposition. On the other 
hand, when the possessive form is used, " I was used to 
his being so excited," the verbal value of " being " is in 
the background, and as its noun value is emphasized, it 
must logically become the sole object of the preposition 
and be preceded by a modifying adjective pronoun. On 
logical grounds, therefore, both constructions are " cor- 
rect " ; but the choice of the construction which one 
prefers to use depends, of course, not so much upon 
logic as upon the conventionalized custom of the lan- 
guage. As has been stated, there is a strong academic 
tendency to regard the form of construction with the 
objective as popular English, and to elevate the con- 
struction with the possessive as the sole standard or cor- 
rect form of the construction. The examples given 
above, however, are sufficient to indicate that a hard and 
fast rule requiring the possessive before the infinitive in 
-ing is not a description of the real facts. There are 
indeed some instances in which the possessive is never 
found, some even where it would be impossible idiom. 
Thus when the noun before the verbal is a plural with 
the usual s- ending, the possessive relation is never in- 
dicated by an apostrophe, a fact which shoAvs that there 
is really no feeling for the possessive relation present in 
the construction. One could not write Protestants' in 
the following : " This has arisen in good measure from 
Protestants not knowing the force of theological terms " 
(Newman, Apologia, p. 352); or authorities' in "She 
laughed at the idea of the authorities holding her " {New 



304 MODERN ENGLISH 

York Times) ; or feats in "I have known of these feats 
being performed several times" (Roosevelt, Hunting 
the Grisly, p. 121). In a sentence like " We had not 
thought of that being his real occupation," a possessive 
form that 's is out of the question ; the pronoun must be 
in the common or non-possessive form. It seems then 
that only when the verbal is preceded by a personal pro- 
noun or the name of a person is there any strong feeling 
that the possessive form is necessary. The hostility 
towards a sentence like the following, " History has no 
record of a city existing under such circumstances," is 
decidedly less than it is towards a sentence like, "No 
one ever heard of Lincoln making such a speech." But 
sentences like this second are common enough even in 
good writers, and the dogmatic rule of the grammarian, 
here as ever, must be taken with liberal allowance. 

4. Concord. The triumph of the logic of meaning 
over the strict rules of formal grammar is frequently illus- 
trated by the concord of verb and subject in Modern Eng- 
lish. A sentence, for example, like " The whole car were 
laughing," is good English, altho it contains a singu- 
lar subject and a plural verb. By " car," however, one 
of course means " all the people in the car," and this 
idea has more value in determining the number of the 
verb than the singular form of the mere word. Likewise 
we may have two related ideas, connected by the coor- 
dinating and, which stand as the subject of a singular 
verb because they are thought of as practically one idea. 
An illustration is Kipling's line, " The shouting and the 
tumult dies." According to strict grammar, we should 
of course have " die " ; but again the logic of ideas rises 
superior to the rules of formal grammar. The same 



ENGLISH GRAMMAR 305 

principle applies to the varying treatment of collective 
nouns. We may say " The jury were of one mind," in 
which the component parts of the jury is the thought 
uppermost in the mind ; or we may say " The jury was 
selected without difficulty," where the jury is thought of 
as a whole. A plural verb is often used in constructions 
in which we have a singular subject to which is united a 
prepositional phrase which has all the value of a coordi- 
nate subject. Thus the following sentence is part of the 
inscription on a tablet recently erected in memory of the 
novelist Blackmore : This tablet ivith the window above are 
a tribute of admiration, etc. This construction is very 
old, being found abundantly as far back as Old English. 
Again it is the logic of the situation which determines the 
concord, " This tablet with the window " being logically, 
tho not grammatically, equivalent to " This tablet and 
the window." 

In a similar way a plural demonstrative adjective is 
often used before the singular noun, in constructions like 
" These kind of apples are hard to get," or " Those sort 
of people are not often met with." This is very general 
colloquial usage, and sufficient examples may be cited 
from good authors to show that it is not impossible 
literary usage. Again it is the general logic of the 
situation which determines the plural forms these, those. 
The words hind and sort are themselves collective nouns 
and imply the idea of plurality. They are, moreover, 
usually followed in this idiom by the plural of the whole 
of which the w6rd hind or sort is a part, as in the above 
examples, of apples and of people. The predominant 
thought of the whole group of words is consequently a 
plural idea, and the demonstrative naturally takes the 

20 



306 MODERN ENGLISH 

plural form. The grammar of such constructions is 
determined by the logic of general situation, not by the 
laws of formal concord. 

Another familiar illustration of the importance of 
general situation as compared with grammatical concord 
is to be found in the construction known as " dangling ? ' 
or " unrelated participle." The strict rule of the gram- 
mars and rhetorics is that the participle must not be used 
without definite and expressed indication of the word 
which it modifies. With unskilled writers this is a safe 
and necessary rule, since often ridiculous blunders are 
made by neglect to follow it. The loose construction is 
often used also when the writer has not taken the trouble 
to think out clearly what he has to say. A sentence like 
" Standing on the hilltop the valley stretched away for 
miles " is bad English, not merely because the participle 
" standing " has no word to modify, but because the 
general situation is not adequately expressed. At the 
same time it must be acknowledged that as a rigid rule 
admitting no exceptions, the prohibition against the 
dangling participle is also a dogma of the theoretical 
grammarian which is contrary to actual practice. Sen- 
tences like the following from Carlyle, " Speaking in 
quite unofficial language, what is the net purpose and 
upshot of war ? " can be readily paralleled, not only in 
colloquial speech, but also in the more correct literary 
style. The following is from Robert Louis Stevenson, 
whom one can hardly regard as a careless writer : "Thence, 
looking up and however far, each fir stands separate 
against the sky no bigger than an eyelash, and all together 
lend a fringed aspect to the hills " {Silverado Squatters). 
Such sentences are indeed quite in harmony with the 



5 W "Z/tfi-fij^&cvj **<th k>{-;.„ /&(.c 



WX? ^'tKrr "?**r«i *>&<& 

Autograph of Milton's "Lycidas," 11. 165-193. 
(For description, see Appendix.) 



308 MODERN ENGLISH 

general tendency of English towards contracted and 
elliptical forms of expression. So long as the meaning 
is fully conveyed, we do not usually trouble ourselves 
much about questions of grammatical completeness. It 
is only when the meaning is obscure, or when some un- 
suitable grouping of ideas is brought about by the failure 
to follow the rules of grammar, that we have recourse to 
the formal rule of grammar to correct the evil. In other 
words, grammatical correctness is in many instances in 
Modern English not a positive, not even a necessary, 
virtue, but merely a safeguard to prevent misleading or 
inadequate forms of statement. 

5. Meaning and Function. Attention has already 
been called to the ease and frequency with which words 
of one part of speech pass over into another. This again 
is partly due to the importance of meaning as distin- 
guished from form in Modern English. Since words in 
Modern English usually stand for ideas, without formal 
restrictions as to the way these ideas shall be expressed, 
they easily lend themselves to a great variety of uses. 
The function, or part of speech, of a word can thus be de- 
termined in Modern English only by the logic of its use. 
The words out, in, then are usually adverbs, but in phrases 
like " the out voyage," " the in voyage," " In the then con- 
dition of my mind " (Dickens), they are plainly adjec- 
tives. Similarly the word so, in the sentence, " He was 
poor but honestly so," can hardly be disposed of as an ad- 
verb. Its function rather is similar to that of the pronoun, 
altho the word which it here stands in place of is the adjec- 
tive "poor," an equivalent form of the sentence being 
" He was poor but honestly poor." In some instances 
the loss of older inflectional forms has resulted in a feel- 



ENGLISH GRAMMAR 309 

ing of some uncertainty on the part of the formal gram- 
marians with respect to the functional uses of words. 
Thus the old dative adverb formed by the addition of 
the inflectional -e to the adjective, by the loss of final -e 
has become exactly like the adjective in form (see above, 
p. 72). Some grammarians are therefore inclined to re- 
gard such constructions as "go slow," as in " The need of 
going slow in astronomical science we have urged many 
times on its practitioners " {New York Times), or " I can't 
walk fast," etc., as incorrect, substituting what they re- 
gard as the correct adverbial forms, " go slowly," or " I 
can't walk rapidly." They thus strive to establish a 
rigid and unequivocal form for adjective and adverb. 
This, as we have endeavored to point out, is contrary to 
the spirit of Modern English grammar, which makes 
logical meaning rather than form the test of value of a 
word, and if slow and fast are used as adverbs, they are 
adverbs and nothing else. By this rule the word " even- 
ings," in the sentence " The library will close evenings 
at eight o'clock," is a pure adverb, equivalent in meaning 
to the adverbial prepositional phrase " in the evening." 
In origin it is derived from an older adverbial genitive 
in -es (a construction which still exists in Modern 
German), with which in later times was confused the idea 
of the plural. But logically, and therefore grammatically, 
its function is adverbial in Modern English whether it is 
regarded as a singular or a plural, and the construction 
is to be accepted as a natural idiom of the language. 
Such adverbial ideas as extent of time and space are also 
expressed without inflection for adverbial form. Thus 
" hours " in " I walked two hours," and " miles " in " I 
walked two miles " are both adverbs. They are some- 



310 MODERN ENGLISH 

times called " adverbial objectives," because this ad- 
verbial function was expressed in the Old English period 
by inflection for the accusative case; but in Modern 
English there is no thought of case connected with the 
words, and their function is determinable merely by their 
logical meaning. In one instance, in the construction 
" I am going home," we have the word " home " pre- 
served in what was originally a locative case of a noun ; 
but here also the feeling for case has disappeared, and the 
word is to be regarded simply as an adverb. 

Another adverb which in origin is derived from an 
inflectional form, but which has become even more 
obscured than those cited, is the adverb the in such 
expressions as " The more the merrier" ; " The sooner you 
do this, the better it will be for you." The word the in 
the inflectional Old English period of the language was, 
in this construction, an instrumental case of the demon- 
strative pronoun, its form being J>y ; in meaning it was 
equivalent to a prepositional phrase "by this," or "by 
that." Our Modern English " The more, the merrier " 
might be paraphrased, therefore, as "more by this, 
merrier by that," in which of course "by this " and " by 
that" are adverbial phrases modifying the adjectives 
"more " and " merrier." From this analysis it will be 
seen that the word the in such constructions as the more, 
etc., since it has the function of an adverb, is to be treated 
as such, even tho in form it seems very remote from 
everything that we connect with the idea of adverb. It 
is not possible to dismiss the construction, as is often 
clone, merely as an " idiom," incapable of analysis. It is 
an easy but unjustifiable way of evading grammatical 
difficulties to group them together as idioms, under- 



ENGLISH GRAMMAR 311 

standing by that term peculiar, illogical, and inexplicable 
constructions which have found their way into the 
language in some mysterious manner beyond the power 
of man to discover. Idioms of this sort are not found 
in the English language. There are many constructions 
which it is difficult to account for on the basis of the 
traditional, theoretical systems of grammar, but there 
are no constructions which cannot be accounted for on 
the grounds of logical development. The term " idiom " 
is needed for better uses than to serve as a designation 
for something which does not exist. It is needed to 
designate those methods of expression which are peculiar 
to one language as distinguished from another. Thus 
it is proper to speak of an English, a German, or a 
French idiom. To write or to speak English idiomati- 
cally means to write or speak it with due understand- 
ing of and regard for those specific forms of expression 
by virtue of which English is English as distinguished 
from all other languages. 

An interesting development of Modern English gram- 
mar is the extension of the class of copulative verbs. A 
copulative verb may be defined as a verb of weakened 
predication or assertion. It serves as a colorless link- 
word rather than to make a positive declaration. Its 
commonest, and apparently oldest form, is the verb " to 
be," which in its most positive significance expresses 
merely the negative act of existence. Closely related to 
"to be" are such words as "to become," "to appear," 
" to seem," etc. Syntactically these copulative verbs 
have to be put into a class apart from the transitive 
verbs, because when they are followed by a substantive 
word, noun or pronoun, this word is in the nominative, 



312 MODERN ENGLISH 

or predicate nominative, case, and also because, unlike 
the transitive verbs, they may be followed by adjectives, 
known as predicate adjectives, as in " I am glad," or " He 
seems happy." It is in this second construction, in 
cases in which the copulative verb is followed by the 
predicate adjective, that the extension of its use has 
occurred. The forms of the verb " to be " have remained 
the only ones which may be followed by a nominative 
case of the pronoun. But the number of verbs which 
may be followed by predicate adjectives has been largely 
increased. Examples are turn, as in " The milk turned 
sour " ; look, as in " he looks sad " ; feel, as in " I feel 
sick " ; smell, as in " it smells sweet " ; sound, as in " the 
horns sound loud " ; flush, as in " he flushed red " ; and 
a great many others. Instances occur abundantly in 
literary English. Jeffries (The Open Air) has the follow- 
ing : " There was a coat of fallen needles under the firs 
an inch thick, and beneath it the dry earth touched 
warm." With the novelist Meredith it has developed 
almost into a mannerism of style. Almost every page 
will furnish illustrations, of which one or two from the 
early pages of his Vittoria may be cited : " Luigi's blood 
shot purple " ; "In his sight she looked a dark Madonna, 
with the sun shining bright gold through the edges of the 
summer hat." Many of these verbs have quite as much 
asserting value as most intransitive verbs, and if it were 
not for the predicative adjectives which accompany them, 
we might classify them simply as intransitive verbs. 
That these words which stand after the verbs are true 
adjectives and not adverbs is determined by our feeling 
for the logic of the statements. Sentences like " The 
flower smells sweet" or " The earth touched warm " do 



ENGLISH GRAMMAR 6V6 

not describe the manner of action of the verb. They are 
rather equivalent to the paraphrases, " The flower is 
sweet to the smell," and " The earth was warm to the 
touch." They combine, therefore, the function of the 
copulative and the intransitive verb, and are charac- 
teristic of Modern English in their vigorous compression 
of statement. The same feeling for compact, strong ex- 
pression which leads to the direct formation of verbs from 
nouns, as, for example, " to bell a cat," instead of the 
weaker " to put a bell on a cat," or " to house the poor," 
instead of " to provide houses for the poor," will help to 
explain also such elliptical and strongly expressive uses 
of the verb as " The earth touched warm," instead of 
" The earth was warm to the touch." 

6. Function-Groups. One result of the loss of in- 
flections in English and the consequent tendency of the 
words of the language to assume generalized forms, each 
word becoming a completely independent word-unit, has 
been the formation of what may be called function- 
groups. In a completely inflectional language, such 
things as function-groups would not exist ; for the lan- 
guage would have for every grammatical function which 
it wished to express an appropriate inflectional form. 
In English, however, many of the grammatical functions 
can be expressed only by means of groups of words. 
Thus English has no true inflectional passive voice, and 
has not had any since the earliest recorded periods of its 
existence. The passive voice has to be expressed by a 
group of words, consisting of a form of the verb " to be " 
united to the past participle. Likewise most of the 
tenses in Modern English, e. g., I have gone, I had gone, 
I shall go, etc., have to be expressed by function-groups, 



314 MODERN ENGLISH 

not by inflections. If we were strictly logical, we should 
write the parts of a function-group together as one 
word, since it has but a single value ; or at least we 
should connect them by hyphens, / had-gone, I shall-go, 
etc. As a matter of fact we do this in some instances, 
but in others we do not. We write " window-sill," 
" typewriter," " office-boy," etc., with or without hy- 
phens, but exactly similar groups are not united at all, 
as, for example, " a bank president," " the city editor," 
"a carpet factory," etc. The usage of the printed and 
written language in this respect is altogether inconsist- 
ent. Certain compound prepositions, like into, beside, 
etc., are written together as one word, but others are not 
only not written together, but may not be written to- 
gether, such as out of, on to, alongside of, because of by 
reason of the artifical distinction established by conven- 
tional usage. This diversity of printed and written 
forms is, however, purely accidental and external. The 
function of out of and into are identical in the sentence* 
" He fell out of the boat into the water," even tho 
they do differ in form. A few further illustrations may 
be cited. The words head on, in " The ships struck head 
on " is an adverbial function-group modifying struck. 
In the sentence, " The shores were steep to all around " 
(Conrad, Nostromo, Chapter I) steep to is a predicate 
adjective. The verb in the sentence, " It is all over with 
me " is the function-group is over, which is modified by 
the adverb all. The value of burst open as a function- 
group is clearly brought out in the following sentence, 
where the words are once used as a verb and then as an 
adjective : " The cottonfields themselves when the bolls 
burst open, seem almost as if whitened by snow, and the 



ENGLISH GRAMMAR 315 

red and white flowers, interspersed among the burst-open 
pods, make the whole field beautiful " (Roosevelt, " In 
the Louisiana Canebrakes," Scribner's Magazine, January 
1908). The words thirty odd, in " I found thirty odd 
volumes on the shelves," are an adjective modifying 
volumes, exactly equivalent in value to thirty-three, or 
thirty-five, etc. In the sentence " I will look into it," 
the verb is the group will look into ; in " The ball went 
flying through the air," the verb is the group went flying ; 
in " He ran up a bill," the verb is ran up. Many other 
illustrations might be cited, but those given are sufficient 
to show that not every separate word by itself has gram- 
matical function in Modern English grammar, but that 
words must often be taken together as constituting 
function-groups. In such cases it is contrary to the 
idiom of the language to try to analyze the groups into 
their constituent parts so as to give every word, standing 
alone, a clearly defined structural value. 

So far has this feeling for the function-group devel- 
oped that often we have a kind of group inflection. 
Thus in a phrase like " The governor of California's 
policy," the possessive inflection should strictly go with 
governor ; the whole phrase, however, the governor of 
California, is felt to belong together and to serve as a 
possessive modifier of policy, and the inflection is conse- 
quently attached to the group as a whole. This use is 
capable of almost indefinite extension. In groups of 
two or more words in names or titles, as, for example, 
Beaumont and Fletcher's Works, the Chicago and Alton' s 
rolling stock, etc., the possessive inflection ends the group. 
In two appositive nouns the possessive inflection is added 
only to the second, as in " We stopped at Mr. Barton, 



316 MODERN ENGLISH 

the clergyman's house, for a drink of water." In popu- 
lar speech a sentence like " That 's the man we saw yes- 
terday's hat " is not only quite intelligible but is felt to 
be quite idiomatic. It is equivalent to " That is the hat 
of the man whom we saw yesterday." This, however, is 
very formal English, the phrase " the hat of the man " 
being unusual spoken idiom ; one would more naturally 
say " That is the man's hat whom 9 " etc. In the sentence 
as first given the main structural part of the sentence is 
simply " That is the hat " ; the rest of the sentence is 
felt to be merely a possessive modifier of hat, and the 
mark of the possessive relation is consequently added 
to the last word of the group preceding the modified 
word. 

An instance of artificial logic applied to a related 
construction is to be found in the affected use of the 
phrase somebody or anybody else's. The normal idiom 
in the use of this phrase gives it the form cited. It is a 
function-group with the value of an indefinite pronoun, 
and the possessive inflection is naturally appended to the 
last element in the group. With certain theoretical 
and conscious speakers and grammarians, however, the 
phrase is given the form anybody 's else. This is neither 
general custom nor is it good logic. To say His opinion 
is as good as anybody's else, or to speak of anybody's else 
■policy would be as unidiomatic as to say the governor's 
policy of California. The use of the form anybody's else 
is a good illustration of the danger of placing the 
authority of individual and theoretical logic above the 
authority of general custom in language. 

7. Mixed Syntax. Occasional questions of gram- 
mar arise in which the source of the difficulty lies in the 



ENGLISH GRAMMAR 317 

mixing of two forms of construction. A familiar illus- 
tration is the prohibited " and which" and " and whom " 
construction. According to the strict rule, which and 
whom should be connected with a preceding clause by 
the coordinating conjunction and only when a real coor- 
dination is intended, that is, when two relative clauses 
of the same syntax are to be coordinately united. 
Colloquially, however, and to a considerable extent in 
literary style as well, the coordinating and is used to 
connect a single relative clause with its main clause. 
The following sentence from a newspaper report of a 
recent speech of the King of Portugal will serve as 
illustration : " I thank your Majesty for the cordial 
reception you have given us, and which we appre- 
ciate." Another illustration may be cited from Bor- 
row (Bible in Spain, II, 336), in whose writings the 
construction abounds: "The principal personage, and 
to whom all the rest paid much deference, was a tall 
man of about forty." Such constructions are really a 
confusion of two different forms of expression. From 
the two forms, "I thank your Majesty for the cordial 
reception you have given us, which we appreciate," 
and "I thank your Majesty for the cordial reception 
you have given us, and we appreciate it," is fashioned 
a contamination of both, " I thank your Majesty for the 
cordial reception you have given us, and which we ap- 
preciate." The sentence from Borrow is made up of 
the two forms, " The principal personage, to whom all 
the rest," etc., and " The principal personage and the 
one to whom," etc., or " The principal personage and to 
him," etc. From the point of view of clear definition 
of thought, there is consequently good ground for 



318 MODERN ENGLISH 

objecting to the lax use of the and which , and whom 
construction. 

Another illustration of mixed syntax is to be found in 
the customary use of the preposition to, into after a verb 
of rest, as " Have you ever been to Chicago ? " The 
usual preposition after forms of the verb to be is at, 
after verbs of motion, to, into. In sentences like the one 
cited, however, the verb to be is not the mere verb of 
rest, but has almost acquired the value of a verb of 
motion. In other instances the construction does not 
seem quite so natural. The following from a recent 
magazine article : " By one o'clock I was back to Mr. 
Rogers' office," would be more customarily expressed 
"By one o'clock I was back at Mr. Rogers' office," or 
" By one o'clock I came back to Mr. Rogers' office." 
The phrase " have never been into it," occurs in 
the following sentence (Henry James, Transatlantic 
Sketches, p. 237) : " The church is lighted only by a 
few glimmering tapers, and as I have never been into it 
but at this hour, I know nothing of its interior aspect." 
We might naturally say " I have never been in it," or 
" I have never gone into it," but " I have never been 
into it" seems to be an unidiomatic blending of both 
forms of expression. 

An old rule of the formal grammars and rhetorics 
which is now happily passing out of existence ran to 
the effect that sentences must not end with prepositions. 
The rule was made in face of the fact that in actual 
speech and in writing sentences do end with preposi- 
tions, and historically, from the Old English period 
down, always have ended with prepositions in certain 
constructions. The shifting of the preposition to the 



ENGLISH GRAMMAR 319 

end of the sentence merely has the effect of emphasizing 
its adverbial value. In sentences containing a relative 
clause with the relative pronoun omitted, the sentence 
cannot end otherwise than with a preposition, as in 
" Where is the man you are to play with ? " or " This is 
the house I was born in." But the old rule is perhaps 
too far gone to require more than a passing notice. A 
rule of similar origin, which is also less frequently met 
with now than formerly, relates to the pronoun to be 
used in referring to the indefinite one. The old rule 
ran to the effect that one must always be referred to by 
itself or one of its forms. By rule the following sen- 
tence would be very elegant English : " If one should 
do that, one would soon find that one's reputation would 
suffer." In natural usage, however, one may eb,. and 
is referred to by he, and, in the possessive, by his. 
Another artificial rule more honored in the breach than 
in the observance is that which requires the coordinate 
particles so ... as when the sentence is negative, 
but as ... as when the sentence is affirmative. Thus 
we must say " He is as tall as I am," but " He is 
not so tall as I am." No valid argument can be found 
for this rule either in logic or in actual use, and it seems 
to owe its existence merely to that passion for subtle 
and dogmatically defined distinctions which generally 
characterizes the theoretical grammarian. The prohibi- 
tion against the use of like as conjunction has a little 
more relation to actual fact. The word may be used as 
verb, as in " I like tennis " ; or as a preposition, as in 
" You look like your father " ; or as an adverb in some- 
what archaic or popular speech, as in " You are not like 
to find him here." But in such a sentence as " He 



320 MODERN ENGLISH 

looks like I did at his age," the usage is " now generally 
condemned as vulgar or slovenly." 1 The use of like as 
conjunction arises from the ellipsis of a fuller form, like 
as, as in the verse in the Psalms, " Like as a father 
pitieth his children," etc. In the simplification of this 
double conjunction, it happens that the second half is 
the one which has most generally persisted and the one 
which the formal grammarian would raise to the position 
of standard. But the ellipsis of as, leaving like for the 
simplified conjunction, is just as natural and just as 
reasonable, and so we find it in use side by side with as. 
u The use of like for as," says Professor Matthews, 2 
" not uncommon in the Southern States [and Eastern 
and Western he might have added], has there always 
been regarded as an indefensible colloquialism; but in 
England it is heard in the conversation of literary men 
of high standing, and now and again it even gets itself 
into print in books of good repute." A colloquialism 
like as conjunction may be, but indefensible it certainly 
is not. It is first of all a widespread custom of the 
speech, it has arisen naturally and in the same way that 
as has, and unless one starts from the a priori position 
that there is only one legitimate form of expression for 
every idea in speech, it makes as strong a bid for favor 
as the conjunction as. 

8. Book Grammar. The study of systematic, or 
technical, or formal grammar, as it is variously called, 
has grown tremendously in modern times. It is made a 
part of every elementary and high school course of in- 

1 New English Dictionary, s. v. like. The dictionary adds, however, 
that "examples may be found in many recent writers of standing." 

2 Americanisms and Briticisms, p. 16. 



ENGLISH GRAMMAR 321 

sti uction, and is even sometimes carried over into the col- 
lege. Where in earlier periods the development of the 
feeling for the customary forms of expression was left 
almost entirely to natural habit, as developed in the 
home and in general social intercourse, in modern times, 
partly through the elevation of a more rigid standard of 
uniformity in usage, but mainly through the wide ex- 
tension of popular education, the tendency is to make 
grammar as conscious and systematic a study as history 
or mathematics. This tendency began only in the mid- 
dle and latter part of the eighteenth century. One of 
the earliest grammars of the modern type was that of 
Bishop Lowth, published in London in 1767. In the 
preface to this volume, the author declares that " the 
principal design of a Grammar of any language is to 
teach us to express ourselves with propriety in that lan- 
guage, and to enable us to judge of every phrase and 
form of construction, whether it be right or not. The 
plain way of doing this is to lay down rules, and to 
illustrate them by examples. But, besides showing 
what is right, the matter may be further explained 
by pointing out what is wrong." And so the greater 
part of Lowth's grammar is taken up with pointing 
out what he thinks to be right and what he thinks to 
be wrong in the writings of Pope, Dryden, Prior, and 
other authors of his period whom we now regard as 
classic. Grammars were also written, about this time, 
for the instruction of " young Gentlemen," and espe- 
cially for the use of " the fair Sex," whose defective 
education in grammar, spelling, and composition is the 
subject of frequent satirical comment in the writings 
of the period. These grammars are significant of a 

21 



322 MODERN ENGLISH 

change which was coming over English education at 
that time. Formerly it had been regarded as sufficient 
school-master education for a gentleman if he was able 
to sign his name to a document, and many a lady 
famous in English history could not boast even of this 
accomplishment. Now, however, a new test of educa- 
tion or cultivation began to assume prominence, the 
test of ability to express one's self in the conventional 
or standardized forms of expression, both in speech and 
in writing. The tendency towards a fixed spelling and 
a fixed grammar went hand in hand, and so far has this 
tendency advanced that to-day deviations from the es- 
tablished and conventional orthography and grammar 
are the most convenient and the most frequently ap- 
plied rough tests, if not of culture, at least of education 
and social position. 

The importance which modern education has assigned 
to conventional grammar has naturally resulted in the 
development of what we have called " book grammar." 
Correct grammar having been made one of the essentials 
of correct conduct it was necessary to have books giving 
the rules of correct grammar. To supply this need those 
speakers of the language who were convinced that they 
knew what the correct grammar of the language was 
have provided such books with amazing abundance. 
These books are, of course, nothing more than the record 
of the customary use of the language as observed by the 
authors of them, for the grammarian has no more power 
of legislating in the rules of grammar than the scientist 
has in the physical laws of nature. Both simply record 
the results of their observation. The hold, however, 
which the records of the professed grammarian have ac- 



ENGLISH GRAMMAR 323 

quired over the average user of the language is peculiar. 
The grammarian merely records the social habits or cus- 
toms of the speech of his community, and yet many per- 
sons who in other ways determine their social habits or 
customs by their own observation, give to the grammar 
the power of a final authority. The rules of personal 
conduct, for example, behavior at table, or the forms of 
politeness, are learned by the process of social inter- 
course ; no one of any social experience governs his con- 
duct by, or defers to, the authority of the rules of any 
book of good manners. For such he usually has the 
greatest contempt, preferring to follow the guide of per- 
sonal experience and observation. But the customs of 
speech are also merely the regularized habits of the 
speech of a community. Why, then, should not the 
speaker depend as much upon the authority of his per- 
sonal experience and observation here as in the other 
social relations of life ? If the discussions of the preced- 
ing pages have been followed, it will be evident that it 
is the author's opinion that he should. Grammars are 
sometimes helpful in enabling a speaker or writer to 
broaden the field of his personal observation. But in 
the end, unless he is willing to become merely a blind 
follower of precept and authority, his own use must 
rest upon personal observation and choice. Book gram- 
mar is inadequate as a guide ; it is even at times false 
and misleading. The best grammar ever written is only 
a skeleton of the speech of some past period. To set 
book grammar up as the test and the source of authority 
in language inevitably leads to a stiff, artificial, and un- 
expressive use of language. The real guide to good 
grammar, to good English in all respects, is to be found 



324 MODERN ENGLISH 

in the living speech. And only he whose experience 
and observation of the living speech are sufficiently 
broad to enable him to employ it with perfect ease and 
confidence can be said to have realized the spirit, the 
idiom of the language. 



VIII 

CONCLUSION 

In the discussions of the preceding pages a good deal 
has been said here and there concerning good English 
and bad English. It may be of advantage to gather 
together, by way of conclusion, the various threads of 
these discussions, and to endeavor to present some con- 
nected answer to the ever-recurring question, What is 
good English ? 

It is plain that the question of good English may arise 
with reference to any of the different sides of language. 
Thus the point to be determined may be one of sound, 
or pronunciation ; of words, or vocabulary ; or one of 
grammar in the narrower sense, the way in which the 
sounds and words of the language are united for the 
expression of thought. But the principles which govern 
the answer to all questions of good English, whether of 
pronunciation, or vocabulary, or grammar, are the same. 
The feeling which underlies the distinctions of right and 
wrong, of good and bad, is a general feeling for the lan- 
guage as a whole, and the threefold division that has 
been made is only of practical value as a convenient way 
of ordering the various kinds of detail which come up 
for discussion. 

In the first place, there should be a clear understand- 
ing of the difference between " good English " and " con- 
ventional " or " standard English." Standard English 



326 MODERN ENGLISH 

is likely to be good English, but all good English is not 
necessarily standard English. What, then, is good Eng- 
lish? The purpose of language being the satisfactory 
communication of thought and feeling, that is good 
English which performs this function satisfactorily. 
Such a definition of good English, it will be observed, 
is purely utilitarian and practical. It defines good Eng- 
lish only in the terms of its activity, without reference 
to any theoretical and abstract conceptions of its value 
or significance. Whenever two minds come into satis- 
factory contact with each other, through the medium of 
language, we have then, so far as each instance taken by 
itself is concerned, a good use of language. The rustic 
with his dialect, and in his own homogeneous dialect 
community, realizes as much the purpose of language as 
the most polished speaker in the " best society " of the 
city. Each expresses himself satisfactorily and is under- 
stood satisfactorily, and more than this language at its 
best cannot do. Our definition of good English is, there- 
fore, very simple ; any English that " hits the mark " is 
good English. To hit the mark in the center, it must 
express exactly what the speaker or writer wishes to 
express, in such linguistic terms as will convey to the 
hearer or reader exactly those impressions which it is 
intended that he shall receive. 

When we come to analyze the situation a little more 
closely, however, we find that there are various kinds of 
good English, that the question of " bad English " usu- 
ally arises when one kind of English is used in circum- 
stances which require a different kind, when one has 
tried to hit the mark with the wrong arrow. Thus there 
is that form of English which is known as " popular 



CONCLUSION 327 

English." This is the speech of those who, usually 
through limited experience and education, are unac- 
quainted with the usage which the community in general 
regards as the better social custom. Sometimes, as in 
the poetry of Burns, it is made the vehicle for literary 
expression. Usually, however, it is a purely colloquial 
speech. Naturally, the limits of popular English are 
not absolutely denned, but are largely a matter of opin- 
ion. The term usually carries with it some unfavorable 
connotations. Popular English is the "vulgar" English 
of the lower classes of society. But just who these 
lower classes are, just the dividing line between the 
upper and the lower, these are matters hard to deter- 
mine. A positive test of culture, outside the dogmatic 
opinion of individuals, has never yet been discovered. 
Certainly it can hardly be said that the person who has 
received the conventional education is, by and for that 
reason solely, a more highly cultivated person than one 
who has not. 

A second kind of English is called " colloquial Eng- 
lish." This is the speech of the commonplace concerns 
of daily life and of less serious conversation, a speech 
freer and less conscious than formal speech, but not 
carrying with it the suggestion of illiteracy which char- 
acterizes popular speech. The degree of colloquialism 
which one permits, in one's self or in others, depends on 
the subject of conversation, on the intimacy of the ac- 
quaintanceship of the persons speaking, and in general 
on all the attendant circumstances. 

A third kind of English is " formal or literary English." 
This is the English of public speaking, of more formal 
conversation, and of printed and written literature. It 



328 MODERN ENGLISH 

varies widely in the degree of its formality, the style of 
a philosophic treatise being appropriately more formal 
than that of a light essay. There is also one manner of 
speaking for the pulpit and another for the lecture-plat- 
form, one manner for the judge in court and another for 
the stump orator. The line of demarcation between for- 
mal and colloquial English is not sharp, just as it is not 
between colloquial and popular English. The style of 
some authors or public speakers, for example, is de- 
cidedly more colloquial, more familiar, than that of 
others. With all, however, whatever the degree of for- 
mality, the dependence of the literary speech upon the 
colloquial speech of natural intercourse is necessary. It 
is from the colloquial speech that the literary speech has 
its vitality. If left to itself, its tendency would be to 
develop into a highly specialized and artificial form of 
expression — a special high-caste language for literature 
that would grow less and less real and expressive as it 
detached itself more and more from the colloquial speech 
in which the common human concerns of life and death 
find their most intimate expression. It is perhaps 
better, therefore, to speak of these three kinds of speech, 
popular, colloquial, and literary, not as three distinct and 
separate species, but rather as three tendencies of devel- 
opment of what is at bottom one speech, and that a 
popular speech in the sense that it comes directly from 
the experiences of men and women, in the immediate 
affairs of life. Language, as Walt Whitman says, " is 
something arising out of the work, needs, ties, joys, affec- 
tions, tastes, of long generations of humanity, and has 
its bases broad and low, close to the ground. Its final 
decisions are made by the masses, people nearest the 



CONCLUSION 329 

concrete, having most to do with actual land and 
sea." 

Each of these three tendencies of English speech has 
its appropriate uses. They are three kinds of arrows 
with which different speakers at different moments 
strive to hit the mark of good English. To hit the mark 
of the serious literary style, one does not use the arrow 
of the obviously colloquial speech, and still less of 
popular speech. To hit the mark in colloquial conver- 
sation, one does not use the arrow of the formal speech, 
nor, among cultivated persons, of the popular speech, 
unless indeed one is ignorant of the fact that the usages 
are regarded as popular by the person whom one is 
addressing. The popular speech naturally does not 
often come into conflict with the colloquial speech of 
polite conversation, or with the formal speech, since the 
characteristic of the popular speaker is his ignorance of 
the other forms of speech. For the same reason the 
speech of polite conversation does not, and need not, 
adapt itself to the popular speech when speakers of the 
two kinds come into contact with each other. Other- 
wise it is assumed " that a man of taste and ability will 
modify his use of language to meet the special require- 
ments of the task proposed. He will have learned by 
study to distinguish between different tones and values 
in the instrument of speech, and will have acquired by 
exercise the power of touching that mighty organ of ex- 
pression to various issues." * 

It thus appears, if the above statements are true, that 
language which may be adequately expressive, and 
therefore good, under one set of circumstances, under a 

1 Symonds, Essays, Speculative and Suggestive, Vol. I, p. 267. 



380 MODERN ENGLISH 

different set of circumstances becomes inadequately ex- 
pressive, because it says more or less than the speaker 
intended, and so becomes bad English. One learns thus 
the lesson of the complete relativity of the value of lan- 
guage, that there is no such thing as an absolute English, 
but that language is valuable only as it effects the pur- 
pose one wishes to attain, that what is good at one time 
may be bad at another, and what is bad at one time may 
be good at another. 

But something further must be said about that tend- 
ency of English which results in what is known as the 
conventional, or standard, English. It is not necessary 
to discuss here why mankind strives to formulate cus- 
toms and habits into a fixed system. The fact itself is 
obvious. Through this natural instinct, as we may call 
it, in all our social customs, of daily manners, of dress, 
of morals, of speech, more or less regularized systems of 
conduct grow up. In language, each community, 
whether it is large or small, has a general understanding 
that this or that pronunciation, or, this or that rule of 
grammar, is the accepted standard, or conventional, one. 
This general understanding is arrived at in a purely vol- 
untary, and often at first unconscious, way. Nobody 
imposes, nobody has the power to impose, any rules of 
standard speech on a community. As we have before 
pointed out, a rule is merely the statement of the general 
custom of a community. We might, consequently, 
speak of the standard popular, the standard colloquial, 
and the standard literary speech of this or that geo- 
graphical community. Usually, however, the term is 
understood in a somewhat more limited sense. It is 
used to signify not merely the customary use of a com- 



CONCLUSION 331 

munity, but especially that use when it is recognized and 
acknowledged as the good use of that community. Any 
usage which is thus given its patent of respectability is 
regarded as standard use. It is customary use raised to 
the position of conscious legalized use. Of course the 
question of standard does not arise until there is some 
conflict of standards. As in the case of civil law, no 
customary practice is legalized, or standardized, until 
doubts are raised with respect to it, until some one 
attempts to depart from the customary practice. Then 
it is necessary to come to some agreement as to what 
shall be recognized as the accepted practice. In the 
case of civil law this is done either through the passing 
of a formal law by some legislative body, or through the 
decisions handed down by judges in passing upon dis- 
puted cases of customary and accepted practice in the 
dealings of men with each other. In matters of language 
the legal or standard practice cannot be so easily deter- 
mined. Owing to the fact that there is no legislative 
body in language, no specified court of appeal, there is 
occasionally lack of agreement as to what shall and what 
shall not be recognized as the accepted use of the 
language. The government of the language is not as 
fully and as definitely organized as is the government of 
the business and other overt acts of men. In many 
instances, or rather in most instances, there is unanimity 
of opinion, and then we have an unquestioned and 
general standard use. The great body of English usage 
is thus made up of forms of language with respect to 
which there is practically no difference of opinion. 
Sometimes, however, due to various causes, such as the 
coming together of two speakers from two different geo- 



332 MODERN ENGLISH 

graphical or social speech communities, instances occur 
in which there arises difference of opinion. In one com- 
munity or one group, he don't, or these kind of people, or 
I will, for the future, will be accepted as the conven- 
tional, standard speech of the community. When they 
are used in this community or this group, they express 
their thought completely, and carry with them no con- 
notation to the discredit of the speaker. In another 
geographical community, or by certain speakers within 
a community, these usages will be condemned as not 
standard, therefore as not satisfactorily expressive, and 
consequently as " wrong" or "incorrect." Who shall 
decide ? Nothing can decide but the observation of cus- 
tom. What is defended as customary use by a commu- 
nity, or even by a single speaker, to carry the matter to 
its final analysis, is standard, or conventional, or " right," 
or "correct," in that community or for that speaker. 
The question of correctness and incorrectness, that is, of 
standard, can only arise when a conflict of opinion arises, 
and this conflict can only be decided by such an exten- 
sion of the field of observation of customary use, on the 
particular question, as will determine finally what the 
true custom is. That this is often a difficult matter is 
not to be denied ; it is, however, only one of the many 
ways in which man is driven to an observation of his sur- 
roundings and to a continual adaption of his conduct to 
these surroundings. The importance of standard speech 
for the welfare of the community should also be recog- 
nized. It is only by the acceptance of general custom 
that speech can be made effective at all, and it is every 
speaker's duty to follow the best custom of the speech 
as he views it. Not idiosyncrasy, not singularity, should 



CONCLUSION 333 

be the ideal in speech, but a wise adjustment to and har- 
mony with the general custom of the speech. 

Standard, and in that sense conventional and " cor- 
rect," English is consequently not altogether the same 
thing as good English. We have said that standard 
English is the customary use of a community when it is 
recognized and accepted as the customary use of the 
community. Beyond this, however, is the larger field 
of good English, any English that justifies itself by ac- 
complishing its end, by hitting the mark. It is plain 
that standard English must continually refresh itself by 
accepting the creations of good English. It has always 
been so in the past, and so it is in the present. If the 
standardizing tendency were carried to its fullest extent, 
it would result in a complete fixity of language. If by 
following standard use one should have to follow custo- 
mary use, it is plain that there could be no place in the 
standard speech for innovation — all would be summed 
up in the simple formula, Follow custom. Language 
would thus soon cease to be positively expressive; it 
would soon come to have no more personal value than 
an algebraic formula. But fortunately the standardizing 
tendency can never be carried out to its completest de- 
velopment, and opposed to it, or at least complementing 
it, will always be the ideal of good English in the 
broadest sense of the words. All that the standardizing 
tendency can do is to fix a vague and general outline of 
the language. This indeed is necessary and valuable 
to prevent a complete chaos of pronunciation, of vocabu- 
lary, and of grammar. But within these vague limits 
there is broad freedom. Poets and prose writers, lively 
imaginations of all kinds, in speech as in literature, are 



334 MODERN ENGLISH 

continually widening the bounds of the conventional and 
standard language by adding to it something that was 
not there before. They must do so if speech is ever to 
rise above the dead level of the commonplace. " Justice 
of perception consists in knowing how and when and 
where to deviate from the beaten track." But deviation 
there must be, and the persons who attain an individual 
style in the use of language are those who seize their op- 
portunities as they present themselves. To them the 
prime and necessary virtue in language is expressive- 
ness, and, as complementing this, there should corre- 
spond on the part of the hearer or reader the willingness 
to receive the expression as fully as it was intended. 
Again, however, we insist on the continual application 
of the test of good English — it must be satisfactorily 
expressive. If it does not justify itself by accomplish- 
ing its purpose, if it shocks the prejudices, or the tradi- 
tions, of the person to whom it is directed, or if it be 
unintelligible, if in any way it fails to secure a satis- 
factory and unhindered transmission of the thought, 
then to the extent of this failure it is bad English. And 
it is bad not because it has failed to satisfy any con- 
dition of theoretical, ideal excellence, any notions of 
standard, but because in the actual practice of the art of 
language it has failed to produce the result for which 
that art exists. 



APPENDIX 

The Old English Chronicle, Laud, 636. 

The manuscript of which the opening page is repro- 
duced above was written in the early part of the twelfth 
century. This is of course relatively late in the Old Eng- 
lish period. Owing, however, to the literary conserva- 
tism of the writers and compilers of the Chronicle, the 
English which we have here differs little in style of 
handwriting and in the forms of language from the 
English of the two centuries preceding. The trans- 
cription of this passage, with interlinear translation, is 
as follows: 

Of Britain the island is eight hundred of miles long 

1 Brittene igland is ehta hund mila lang 

two hundred broad here are this 

2 and 1 twa hund brad. And her sind on pis 

island five languages English British 

3 iglande fif gepeode, englisc and brittisc 

Welsh Scotch Pictish 

4 and wilsc and scyttisc and pyhtisc and 

Latin First were inhabitants of this land 

5 bocleden. 2 Erest weron bugend pises landes 
the British These came from Armorica settled 

6 brittes. pa coman of armenia 3 and gessetan 

southward Britain first. Then befell it that the 

7 suSewearde bryttene aerost. pa gelamp hit paet 4 pyh- 
Picts came from the south from Scithia (?) with long ships 

8 tas coman supan of Scithian mid langum 5 scipum 
not many they came first to north Hibernia 

9 na manegum. And pa coman serost on norp ybernian 

there asked the Irish they there might dwell But 

10 up, and peer bsedon 6 scottas 7 paet hi Ser moston wunian. ac 
they would not them permit for they said the Irish 

11 hi noldan heom lyfan, forftan hi cwaedon, pa scottas: 



386 MODERN ENGLISH 

you may tho counsel teach know 

12 we eow magon peah hwa<5ere 8 raed gelaeron. We witan 
another island here to the east ye may dwell if 

13 oper egland her be easton. per ge magon eardian, gif 

will any one you opposes assist 

14 ge willaS. And gif hwa eow wiSstent, we eow fultumiaft 

may conquer. Then fared 

15 past ge hit magon gegangan. Da ferdon pa pihtas and ge- 
acquired northwards southwards it had 

16 ferdon pis land norpanweard, and supanweard hit hef- 

the British as before said for themselves 

17 don brittas, swa we ser cwedon. And pa pyhtas heom 
obtained wives of the Irish the condition would choose their 

18 absedon wif set scottum on pa gerad paat hi gecuron heora 

royal-kin ever woman side they held so long 

19 kyne cinn aa od pa wif healfa. pset hi heoldon swa lange 
afterwards then befell it after of years the course 

20 sySSan. And pa gelamp hit imbe geara rina, paet 
of the Irish some deal went from Hibernia to Britain there 

21 scotta sum dsel gewat of yberoian on brittene and per lan- 
land some deal conquered was their leader Beoda call- 

22 des sum dsel geeodon. And wes heora heratoga reoda ge- 

ed this one they are named Dselreodi Six- 

23 haten. From pam heo sind genemnode daelreodi. Six- 

ty winters ere that Christ was born Gaius Julius 

24 tigum wintrum ser pam pe criste were acenned, gaius iulius 
of the Romans csesar with eighty ships sought (i.e., visited) 

25 romana kasere mid hund ehtatigum scipum gesohte 
Britain was first afflicted with grim 

26 brytene. per he wes aerost geswenced mid grimmum 

battle much of his army he led astray then 

27 gefeohte and micelne his heres forlaedde. And pa he 

1 and. The manuscript has here, as frequently, an abbreviation for 
the conjunction. 2 bocleden. Literally "book-Latin," meaniug the 

Latin of the learned classes. 3 armenia. The manuscript reading must 
be a mistake for Armorica, on the Continent. 4 poet. Here again, as 

frequently, the conjunction pcet is abbreviated by giving only the first let- 
ter. 5 langum. The manuscript writes langu, but the stroke over the 
u indicates an abbreviation. 6 bcedon. The manuscript has bcedo, the 
n being omitted by mistake. 7 scottas. The Scotch in the early periods 
of English history were the inhabitants of Ireland or Hibernia. 
8 peah hwaftere. Equivalent to " however," altho literally the words 
are " tho whether." 



APPENDIX 33T 

In order to indicate the relatively fixed or " classic " 
character of the language of the Old English period, it 
may be interesting to point out the forms of this text as 
they would have been given two hundred years before 
the time at which the text was written. It will be ob- 
served that the changes are comparatively few in num- 
ber and in themselves not very striking. In line 1, ehta 
would probably have been written eahta ; in 1. 5, erest 
and weron would have been cerest and wceron; in 1. 6, 
Brittes would have been Brittas, as it is in 1. 17; in the 
same line, eoman and gesoetan would have been comon and 
gesceton. By the time of this text, however, there was 
already entering some feeling of uncertainty with respect 
to the vowels of unstressed syllables. In 1. 11, forftan in 
earlier Old English would have been forfiam ; in 1. 16, 
hefdon would have been hcefdon; in 1. 17, cwedon would 
have been civcedon; in 1. 18, gecuron, an indicative form, 
would have been gecuren, an optative or subjunctive 
form; in 1. 21, iper would have been ]>oer; in 1. 22, wes 
would have been wees, and heratoga would have been here- 
toga, etc. These changes are very rarely of sufficient im- 
portance to obscure the grammatical relationships of the 
words. In popular speech doubtless the changes were 
much more extensive. The language of the Chronicle is 
conservative, literary Old English, such as was preserved 
in the seclusion of the monasteries and libraries of Eng- 
land. When this conservative literary culture was des- 
troyed by the Norman Conquest and its consequences, the 
only English which was left was of course the popular, un- 
literary English, in which changes had taken place at a much 
more rapid rate. It is from this popular English that the 
language of the Middle English period is largely derived. 

22 



338 MODERN ENGLISH 

Chaucer's Pardoner's Tale. 

( From Cambridge Univ. MS. G. G. 4. 27, fol. 306.) 

This manuscript was written in the early part of the fif- 
teenth century, probably within thirty or forty years after 
Chaucer's death. It was written by a professional copy- 
ist and is illustrated by means of a number of drawings 
representing the characters of The Canterbury Tales. 
The following is a transcription of all except the last 
four lines of the passage contained in our reproduction : 

Here begynnyth the Pardonner his tale. 

In flanderys whilhom dwellede a cumpaynye 

Of yonge folk that hauntedyw folye, 

As ryot, hasard, stewys, and tavernys, 

Where as with harpys, lutys and geternys, 

They daunce and pleye at deis bothe day and nyght, 

And ete and drynke also ovyr here mygt, 

Thoure whiche they don the deuyl sacryfise 

With inne that deuyls temple in cursede wyse, 

By superfmyte abominable. 

Here othis been so greete and so dampnable 

That it is gresely for to here hem swere. 

Oure blyssede lordis body they to tere ; 

Hem thougte that Jewis rente hym not ynough, 

And eche of hem at otherys synne lough. 

Letters which in the MS. are indicated by an abbrevia- 
tion, usually a stroke above or below the place in which 
the letters belong, are printed here in italics. The capi- 
tal I of the first word is part of the decoration. The 
following is a literal translation of this passage : 

In Flanders whilom dwelt a company 

Of young folk who practiced (haunted) folly, 



APPENDIX 339 

As riot, hasard (gambling), brothels and taverns, 

Where with harps, lutes and guitars, 

They dance and play at dice both day and night, 

And eat and drink, also, over their might, 

Through which they do the devil sacrifice 

Within the devils temple, in cursed wise, 

By abominable superfluity. 

Their oaths are so great and damnable 

That it is grisly to hear them swear. 

Our blessed Lord's body they dismember ( to tere ) ; 

It seemed to them (Hem thougte) the Jews rent him not 

enough, 
And each of them at the others sin laughed. 

A phonetic transcription of the passage is as follows : 

In flanderz hwilom dweled a kumpenia 

Of yurja folk Sat hentedin folia, 

Az riot, hazard, stewas and tavernas, 

hwer az wip harpas, lutas and geternas, 

Se dens and pie at des bop cle and niht, 

and et and drink als' ovir hera miht 

pur hwi£ Se don Sa devil sakrifiza 

wip in Sat devils tempi' in kursed wiza, 

bi superfluity abominabla. 

her 6Sas ben so gret and so dampnabla, 

Sat it is gresli for to her hem swera. 

ur blised Lerdis bodi Se totera ; 

hem puht Sat jewis rent him net intih, 

and ee of hem at 6Serz sina luh. 

The First Folio of Shakspere. 
( Merchant of Venice, IV, i, 119-152.) 

The First Folio of Shakspere was printed in the year 
1623. The text of the Merchant of Venice in the First 



340 MODERN ENGLISH 

Folio, which was the first collected edition of Shak- 
spere's plays and which was made up mainly from earlier 
editions of the separate plays, was taken from a quarto 
edition published in the year 1600. Our passage repre- 
sents, consequently, the form which printed literature 
took in the first quarter of the seventeenth century. 
Some of the spellings are noteworthy. In 1. 122, bank- 
rout represents the older spelling of the word, following 
French banqueroute, from which it was borrowed; our 
modern spelling bankrupt was due to the desire to indi- 
cate the ultimate etymology of the second element, from 
Latin ruptus, " broken." Shakspere probably pronounced 
no p in the word. In 1. 123, soale and soule are spelt dif- 
ferently because there was a slight difference in pronuncia- 
tion, great enough to justify the differing othography but 
not too great to make the pun seem forced. In Modern 
English sole and soul are not distinguishable in sound, 
altho the spelling still indicates that they are of differ- 
ent etymological origin. Note the cumbersome spelling, 
such as Jceene, mettall, axe, beare, dogge, etc. The spell- 
ing dog, beside Shakspere's dogge, offers an argument for 
the modern spelling eg instead of egg. Other words of 
this group have undergone the change, earlier begg, legg 
or begge, legge, etc., simplifying to beg, leg, etc. Instead 
of inexeerable, 1. 128, many editors read inexorable. Note 
the inconsistent use of capital letters in the passage. 



Autograph of Milton's Lycidas, 11.165-193. 

This passage from Milton's Lycidas is reproduced from 
a facsimile of the manuscript of Milton's minor poems 
preserved in the Library of Trinity College, Cambridge. 



APPENDIX 341 

A literal transcription of the passage is as follows, words 
crossed out by Milton being printed in italics : 

Lycidas. 

1 Weepe no more wofull shepherds weepe no more 

2 for Lycidas yo r sorrow is not dead 

3 sunck though he be beneath the watrie floare 

4 so sinks the day starre in the Ocean bed 

5 & yet anon repairs his drooping head. 

6 and tricks his beams & w tb newspangled ore 

7 flams in the forhead of y e morning skie 

8 so Lycidas sunk low but mounted high high 

9 through the deare might of him that walkt y e 

waves : 

10 where other groves and other streams along 

11 w th nectar pure pure his oozie locks he laves 

12 & heares listening the unexpressive nuptiall song 

13 in the blest kingdoms meek of joy & love 

14 there entertaine him all the S ts above 

15 in sollemne troops, and sweet societies 

16 that sing, & singing in thire glorie move 

17 and wipe the teares for ever fro his eyes 

18 now Lycidas the shepherds weepe no more 

19 henceforth thou art the Genius of y e shoare 

20 in thy large recompence, & shalt be good 

21 to all that wander in that perilous flood 

22 Thus sung the uncouth swaine to th' oakes & rills 

23 while y e still morne went out w th sandals gray 

24 he toucht the tender stops of various quills 

25 w th eager thought warbling his Dorick lay 

26 and now the Sun had stretcht out all the hills 

27 and now was dropt into ivestren the wester'n bay 

28 at last he rose and twitcht his mantle blew 

29 To morrow to fresh woods and pasturs new 



342 MODERN ENGLISH 

Note the persistence of numerous awkward and i 
economical spellings in Milton's usage, e. g., 1. 1, wee 
wofull ; 1. 3, sunck, watrie, floare ; 1. 4, starr ; 1. 10, deai 
1. 12, heares, nuptiall ; 1. 15, sollemne ; 1. 23, oakes, e 
On the other hand, note how Milton, with his free att 
tude towards spelling, spells phonetically when he is so 
inclined, e. g., 1. 10, walkt ; 1. 25, toucht ; 1. 27, stretcht; 
1. 28, blew, to rime with new. 

In line 2, yo r is an abbreviation for your, as in line 6, 
w th for with, in line 14, S ts for Saints, and line 17, fro 
for from. In line 7 ye is for the, the symbol y beinf 
used instead of the older thorn, J>, the Old English rep? 
sentative of th. Of course Milton always pronourc 
this word as the not as ye, as is sometimes done by t, 
who are not aware of the fact that the y is merely ai 
orthographic substitution for the older p. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

This Bibliography gives the titles of only one or two 
presentative works under each head. The books named 
e such as will be found most useful to the student 
hose special interests are in English. 

General Treatises on Language : 

Strong, Logemann and Wheeler, History of language, 

New York, 1891. This work is an adaptation and 

translation of Paul's Principien der Sprachgeschichte. 
Sweet, Henry, The History of Language, The Macinil- 

lan Co., London, JL9QQ^ One of the Temple Primers ; 

a brief but authoritative review of the subject. 
English Origins and Institutions : 

Chadwick, H. Munro, The Origin of the English Nation, 

Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1907. 
Dale, E. , National Life and Character in the Mirror of 

Early English Literature, Cambridge, Cambridge 

University Press, 1907. 
Gummere, F. B., Germanic Origins, New York, 1892. 
General Histories of the English Language : 

Lounsbury, T. R., History of the English Language, Re- 
vised Edition, New York, 1901. 
Emerson, O. F., The History of the English Language, 

New York, 1897. In briefer form also as A Brief 

History, etc., 1900. 
Toller, T. N., Outlines of the History of the English 

Language, New York, 1900. 
Bradley, Henry, TJie Making of English, New York, 

1904. 



A 



344 MODERN ENGLISH 

Jespersen, Otto, Growth and Structure of the English 
Language, Leipzig, B. G. Teubner, 1905. 

Wyld, H. C, The Historical Study of the Mother Tongue, 
New York, 1906. This book devotes most of its space 
to phonetics and to the changes in the spoken form 
of the language. 

Greenough and Kittredge, Words and their Ways in 
English Speech, New York, 1901. This book treats 
mostly of words, but it illustrates in its discussions 
many of the general principles of growth in language. 

4. English Grammars : 

Sweet, Henry, A New English Grammar, two parts, 
Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1892, 1398. 

Matzner, Eduard, Englische Grammatik, two volumes, 
3d ed., 1880-1885. Translated into English from 
an earlier edition by C. J. Grece, London, 1874. 

Kaluza, Max, Historische Grammatik der Englischen 
Sprache, two parts, Berlin, Emil Felber, 1906-1907. 

Horn, W., Histoi'ische neu-englische Grammatik, Strass- 
burg, 1908. 

Poutsma, H., A Grammar of Late Modern English, for 
the use of Continental, especially Dutch, Students, two 
parts, Groningen, P. Noordhoff, 1904-1905. This 
grammar is written in English, and is valuable to 
English readers for its large number of illustrations 
from contemporary English. 

Among the numerous shorter treatises the following 
may be noted : Morris, Historical Outlines of Eng- 
lish Accidence ( 1896) ; Whitney, Essentials of Eng- 
lish Grammar; Abbott, A Shakespearian Grammar; 
Kellner, Historical Outlines of English Syntax ; and 
for a general discussion of the methods and aims in the 
teaching of grammar, see Carpenter, Baker and Scott, 
The Teaching of English, New York, Longmans, 
Green and Co., 1903. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 345 

5. English Dictionaries, in the order of their completeness and 

reliability as works of scholarly reference : 

New English Dictionary, also called The Oxford Dic- 
tionary, and sometimes from the name of its general 
editor, Murray's Dictionary. This work, which is now 
nearing completion, is written on historical principles 
and in the light of the best scholarship of modern 
times. It is a work of reference for the scholar, not 
the general public. It is published at the Clarendon 
Press, Oxford; the first volume appeared in 1888, 
and it is now (1908) in the letter R and in its eighth 
volume. 

Tlie Century Dictionary, and Encyclopedic Lexicon of 
the English Language, The Century Company, New 
York (copyright, 1889), in six volumes. 

The Standard Dictionary, Funk and Wagnalls, New 
Y^ork, two volumes. 

Webster's International Dictionary of the English Lan- 
guage, Springfield, Mass., G. and C. Merriam Com- 
pany, 1904, one vol. 

Skeat, W. W., A Concise Etymological Dictionary of 
the English Language, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1901. 
This is the best of the various forms of Professor 
Skeat's Dictionary and is a convenient and inexpen- 
sive work of reference. 

6. English Sounds : 

Sweet, H., History of English Sowids, Oxford, 1888. 
This is the most elaborate study of English sounds 
that has so far appeared. More elementary and deal- 
ing more with present English are the following two 
works, also by Mr. Sweet. 

, The Sounds of English, Oxford, 1908. 

, A Primer of Spoken E?iglish, Oxford, 1900. 

Vietor, Elements of Phonetics, English, French, and 
German, translated and adapted by Walter Eipp- 



"> 



346 MODERN ENGLISH 

mann, London, J. M. Dent & Co., 1899. This is an 
adaptation of the work of Professor Vietor entitled 
Kleine Phonetik, Leipzig, 2d ed., 1901. 
Skeat, W. W., A Primer of Classical and English 
Philology, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1905. This 
book treats of English sounds from the point of view 
of the relationship of English to other languages and 
from the point of view of English etymology. The 
various general histories and grammars of the Eng- 
lish language all treat of English sounds more or 
less fully. Attention may be called especially to 
H. C. Wyld's Historical Study of the Mother Tongue, 
mentioned above. 



INDICES 



INDEX OF SUBJECTS 



[The numbers refer to pages ] 



a, different pronunciations of, 118-119, 
131-134 

Absolute possessives, 87-88 

Accent, 50, 112-150, 199 

Adjective, twofold declension of, 49-50 

Adverbs, various forms of, 71-72, 
309-311 

^Ethelred, 28 

^Ethelstan, 28 

Alcuin, 215 

Aldhelm, 215 

Alfred, 23, 27, 215 

Alphabet, relation to sounds, 113-115 , 
phonetic alphabet, 115-122; reform 
of, 174-176 

Angles, 20-21 

Anglo-Saxons, their conquest of Bri- 
tain, 19-22; Arthur's battles against, 
20; civilization of, 23-27; jewelry 
and embroidery made by, 27 

Apostrophe, origin of, 8G-87 

Arthur, 20 

Artificial language, 40-43 

Ascham, Roger, 245 

Augumenting the English vocabulary, 
theory of, 235-248 

Augustine, 23 

Barrie, J. M., 284 

Bede, 215, 251 

Beowulf, 24 

Berners, translation of Froissart, 252 

Blickling Homilies, 251 

Britain, origin of name, 15-16 

Browne, Sir Thomas, 276-277 

Brut, 226 

Caedmon, 24 

Carlyle, his etymologies, 262 and note 

Caxton, William, 236-241, 252 



Celtic words in English, 212-214 

Celts, 15-16; in Gaul, 18 

Chaucer, 13, 35, 80, 81, 140, 152, 153, 

193, 195, 200, 225, 230, 232, 241, 251, 

338-339 
Cheke, Sir John, 245 
China, use of English in, 38 
Chinese, words borrowed from, 258 
Chronicle, Old English, 26, 335-337 
Cicero, 234, 251 

Classification of languages, 44-48 
Cnut, 28 
Coleridge, 196 

Colloquial English, 149-154, 327 
Composition, 56-59, 187-193 
Concord, value of in modern English, 

304-308 
Consonants, classification of, 109-110 
Conventional English, 325-326 
Copulative verbs, 311-313 
Counter words as slang, 202-205 
Cursor Mundi, 224 
Custom in speech, 6-7, 124-125, 154- 

166, 325-334 
Cynewulf, 24 

Dangling participles, 306 

Danish invasions, 27-28 

Davies, Sir John, 194 

Defoe, 195 

Democracy, speech of, 7-8 

Dialect, 139-141 

Dictionaries, their authority, 162-167, 

173-174 
Differentiation in meanings of words, 

186-211 
Dutch, words borrowed from, 258 

Early South English Legendary, 32 
Echoic words, 185 



350 



INDEX OF SUBJECTS 



Edward, son of Alfred, 28 

Edward the Confessor, 28, 220-221 

Egbert, 22 

Elyot, Sir Thomas, 241-242, 252 

English, compared with German, 53- 
54; as a "grammarless tongue," 
59-62; in Middle English period, 
74-75 ; as bilingual language, 220 

Erasmus, 236 

Esperanto, 40 

Etherege, Sir George, 90, 288 

Etymology, 260-267 

Exeter Book, 26 

Fine writing, 283-285 

Foreign plurals, 296 

Formal grammar, 320-324 

Fox, George, 92 

Freeman, E. H., 36, note, 222, note 

French words in English, 219-233; 

late borrowings, 253-255 
Function, how determined in modern 

English, 308-313 
Functional change, differentiation of 

vocabulary by means of, 197-199 
Function groups, 313-316 

Gallomania, 31 

Gascoigne, George, 246-247 

Gender, 64 and note 

German, English borrowings from, 
255-257 

Glanik, 40 

Goethe, 249 

Good English, 75-77, 325-334 

Gradation, 186-187 

Grammar, defined, 286; conservative 
tendency in, 287-289; logic in, 304- 
308; book grammar, 320-324 

" Grand style," 276-278 

Greek. 13-14, 46, 236 

Grimm, Jacob, 50 

Grimm's Law, 50-53, 99 

Grocyn, William, 236 

Hardacnut, 28 

Harvey, Gabriel, 87, note, 242 

Hengest, 20 

Higden, Ralph, 224 

Holmes, O. W., 100 



Horsa, 20 
Howell, 194 
Hunt, Leigh, 132 
Hybrids, 272-274 
Hyphenation, 189 

Idiom, 310-311 

Imitation, 124-139 

Indian, American, words borrowed 
from, 258 

Indian, East, words borrowed from, 
258 

Indo-European family of languages, 
44-47 

Inflection, nature of, 56-59; in Old 
English period, 62-74; in Middle 
English period, 74-83 ; in the Mod- 
ern English period, 83-98, 289-296 ; 
substitution in, 80-94; profit and 
loss in inflectional development, 94- 
98 ; synthesis and analysis, 94-96 ; 
changes in modern period, 289-297. 

Inkhorn terms, 242-248 

Italian, words borrowed from, 257-258 

Japan, use of English in, 38 
Johnson, Dr., 172, 268, 271, 285 
Junian manuscript, 26 
Jutes, 20-21 

Kipling, R., 192 

Lamb, Charles, 278 

Language, history of, 3 ; function of, 
4 ; as social custom, 5-7 ; of a dem- 
ocracy, 7-8 ; degeneration and 
progress in, 6-7 ; language and 
education, 8-9 ; literary and spoken 
language, 10-14, 149-154, 327-328 ; 
universal and artificial, 37-43 ; clas- 
sification of, 44-48; synthetic and 
analytic, 94-96 ; laws of, 123-125 

Larynx, 102-104 

Latimer, William, 236 

Latin, words borrowed from, 212, 214- 
217 

Latinists, 244 

Law in language, 50-51, 123-125, 151- 
152, 330-334 

Layamon, 226 



INDEX OF SUBJECTS 



351 



Liaison, 148-149 
Lily, William, 236 
Linacre, Thomas, 236 
Literary English, 327-328 
Lowell, J. R., 139, 199, 284 

Malay, words from, 258 

Metaphor, differentiation of meaning 

by, 193-197 
Milton, 143, 165, 340-342 
Mixed syntax, 316-320 
Moliere, 14 

More, Sir Thomas, 236 
Mutation plurals, 66-67 

Nasal twang, 106 

Nashe, Thomas, 242 

Newspaper English, 284 

Norman Conquest, 28-35 ; origin of 
Normans, 29 ; loss of Normandy, 
30 ; influence of Conquest, 34-35 ; 
effect upon vocabulary, 221-222 

o, different pronunciations of, 134 
Obscure compounds, 142-148, 189-191 
Old English, use of the term, 22 
Organic sound changes, 141-154 
Ormulum, 226 

Parliament, first opened with English 
speech, 33 

Paris, university of, 31 

Pathetic fallacy, 196 

Pennsylvania German, 140 

Periods of English, 35, 54-55 

Pettie, G., 248 and note 

Philippines, English in, 38 and note ; 
words borrowed from, 258 

Phonetics, defined, 101; phonetic al- 
phabet and transcription, 115-122, 
174-176 ; phonetic laws, 123-124 

Pidgin English, 38 

Polysyllabic humor, 277-278 

Popular English, 76, 150-154, 327 

Prayer Book, 250 

Printing, influence of on spelling, 172 

Pronunciation, standard of, 154-166 

Proportional elements of the English 
vocabulary, 267-269 

Provincialism in speech, 141 



Purity in vocabulary, 34, 269-274 
Puttenham, 247 

Quakers, use of thee, 92-93 

Renascence, 233-238 

Resonance chamber, 104-105 

Riley, J. W., 139 

Robert of Gloucester, 224 

Romans, in Britain, 16-18; Roman 

walls, 17 ; departure of, 18-19 
Raskin, John, 196, 262-263 
Russian, words from, 258 

Saxonists, 244 

Saxons, 20-21 

Saxon shore, 19 

Scandinavian words in English, 217- 
219 

Scientific vocabularv, 259-260, 278- 
279 

Scott, Sir Walter, 228-229 

Second shifting of consonants, 54 

Shall and will, 293-295 

Shakspere, 13, 90, 140, 161, 194, 200, 
244, 249, 287, 339-340 

Sidney, Sir Philip, 244 

Slang", 199-211 

Social custom, speech as, 6-7, 124-125, 
154-166, 325-332 

Sounds, the study of, 99-100; pro- 
duction of, 101-106; voiced and 
voiceless, 106-107; vowel and con- 
sonant, 107-109 ; alphabet and 
sounds, 113-115; changes of, 122- 
139 

Spanish, words from, 258 

Speech and race, 15 

Spelling reform, 167-182 

Spencer, Herbert, 270 

Split infinitive, 298-300 

Standard English, 154-166, 325-332 

Subjunctive, use of, 290 

Substitution, 80-94 

Suffixes, development of meaning in, 
192-193 

Swinburne, couplets in his prcse, 252 

Talking through the nose, 106 
Tennyson, Alfred, 164 



352 



INDEX OF SUBJECTS 



Teutonic languages, 48-50 
Tilly, William, 236 
Trevisa, John, 224-225 



u, different pronunciations of, 136-137 
Urquhart, Sir Thomas, 40 



Vanbrugh, 90 

Vercelli Book, 26 

Vergil, 234 

Vocabulary, element of English, 267- 

268; purity of, 269-272 
Voiced and voiceless sounds, 106-107 
Volapuk, 40 



Vortigern, 20 

Vowels, classification of, 111-112 

" Weak e," 120 

White, R. G., 132 

William the Conqueror, 26, 28-29; 

221-222 
Wilson, Thomas, 243 
Word-accent, 50, 199 
Word-pairs in English, 250-253 
Words, study of, 183-184; creation 

of, 184-186 ; meanings of, 186-211 ; 

borrowing of, 211-260; profit and 

loss in borrowing, 275-283 ; order 

of, 297-301 
World English, 36-40 



INDEX OF WORDS 



able, 229 
adventure, 233 
aeronaut, 255 
aerostat, 255 
age, 229 

aggravating, 281 
agreeable, 233 
ear, 229 
& la carte, 254 
a/ms, 215 
ambuscade, 258 
amiable, 233 
amuck, 258 
animal, 264 
arcft'c, 199 
antique, 199 
anybody else's, 316 
a/>ex, 264 
apostle, 215 
appendix, 296 
armor, 232 
arms, 232 
as, 320 

asparagus, 190 
asphalt, 190 
a*Aew*, 273 
awn*, 232 
automobile, 260 
owt/m?, 202 

balance, 281 
fta^as^, 257 
bamboozle, 209 
bandanna, 258 
oancto, 296 
banner, 232 
bantam, 197 
Jam, 190 
fcaron, 232 
barrens, 197 
6as£, 249 
base-ballist, 274 



6attZe, 232 
battle-door, 92, note 
oear, 208 
fceawty, 233 
oee/, 228 
fo/tecife, 255 
bishop, 215 
bismuth, 255 
blackbouler, 255 
blende, 255 
boghei, 255 
6o£«s, 209 
5oi7, 229 
bombast, 257 
oowms, 264 
ooow, 185, 258 
fioof, 232 
6ooze, 208 
boule-dogue, 255 
boulingrin, 255 
fox, 194, 216 
6rea<A, 32 
breeches, 66 
6W$r#, 257 
brimstone, 190 
oroc&, 213 
brogue, 214 
6m7, 231 
brother, 232 
6mH, 208 
6mot, 238 
fo^Zer, 257 
butter, 216 
ty-/aw, 198, 218 

carfei, 254 
cahoots, 209 
caisson, 255 
calends, 216 
caZf, 228 
calico, 197 
crtZ/. 219 



candle, 215 
canoeist, 274 
caj9, 232 
caprice, 254 
captain, 232 
carafe, 254 
card, 229 
caress, 254 
carouse, 255 
casf, 219 
castra, 18 
ca£, 54 

causeway, 190 
cedar, 216 
cAaif*, 229 
cAa7e, 255 
charity, 228 
charm, 233 
chartern, 257 
chastity, 233 
chauffeur, 255 
cheese, 216 
cAe/, 254 
chemist, 273 
cherub, 296 
dies*. 194 
Chester, 18 
china, 197 
chivalry, 230 
chump, 209 
city, 228 
c/an, 214 
c/er##, 232 
cZe?-ife, 165-166, 232 
cZoafc, 232 
cloister, 232 
clown, 257 
cZuo, 255 
coa«, 232 
co6afr, 255 
cocksparrow, 58 
coiffure, 254 



354 



INDEX OF WORDS 



cold, 54 
collis, 52 
colonel, 232 
compound, 199 
condign, 282 
construct, 240, note 
contortionist, 274 
contract, 19 
conversationalist, 274 
coquet, 254 
coracle, 214 
cornus, 51 
cottolene, 260 
courage, 233, 254 
course, 229 
cow*, 232 
courtesy, 230 
courtliness, 231 
cousin, 232 
coward, 233 
cowry, 257 
crave, 218 
crayfish, 191 
creed, 215 
cricket, 255 
criterion, 296 
cromlech, 214 
croofc, 208 
croquet, 257 
crown, 232 
cry, 229 
culinary, 163 
cap, 216 
cupboard, 190 

darcce, 232 
c?a<a, 296 
da Mo, 258 
dead, 54 

dea/, 54, 137-138 
efeai, 54 
eZeai/j, 32 
dec*, 178, 229 
deftw*, 254 
debutante, 227 
decern, 51 
aTenu' tasse, 254 
denouement, 227 
dens, dentis, 51 
dentist, 274 



desperado, 258 
dessert, 254 
didoes, 209 
die, 219 
dine, 231 
dinner, 231 
dipsey, 190 
do, 54 
docfc, 258 
e%, 32, 134-135 
dog-cart, 255 
dogma, 264 
Doncaster, 18 
dow&£, 229 
dozwi, 213 
driften, 257 
drooZ, 208 
drown, 219 
druggist, 274 
drmd, 213 
dry, 213 
dschungel, 257 
duchess, 232 
d«£e, 232 
duma, 258 

ear, 195 
ease, 229 

educationalist, 274 
either, neither, 138 
elegant, 203 
eligible, 282 
elocutionist, 274 
endorse, 282 
engine, 229 
England, 21, 22, note 
English, 22, note 
entree, 254 
essay, 257 
excursus, 264 
exemplary, 282 
Exeter, 18 
etcif, 264 
eotfra, 264 

/ace, 229 
/air, 203-204 
/aZAer, 51, 232 
/eas<, 231 
/e«, 51 



female, 58 
festoon, 254 
fiancee, 227, 254 
/erce, 202 
fifoclock, 255 
finger, 32 

>a, 257 

jf?ord, 258 
/re, 200 
/#, 211, note 
/zz, 185 
flannel, 214 
/foe, 258 
/om«, 274 
flower, 229 
/mo, 209 
/«»*, 208 
/ocms, 296 
folHorist, 274 
/oo£, 51 
football, 255 
four-in-hand, 257 
foyer, 227 
fresco, 258 
/j-o, 219 
jfrtw'f, 229 
fungus, 264 

galore, 214 
gantlet, 258 
^raoZ, 179 
#aj9e, 219 
garage, 255 
yar aws, 256 
gazette, 254 
genius, 264 
genre, 227 
gentleman, 257 
geyser, 258 
gingerly, 261 
gingham, 258 
ginseng, 258 
<dew, 214 
Gloucester, 18 
glucose, 260 
#oa£, 257 
#0/, 257 
<7orcy, 258 
good-by, 143-144 
gossip, 190 



INDEX OF WORDS 



355 



grace, 231 


iiora, 258 


torrf, 144 


graft, 206 


«;, 219 


tory, 258 


grandee, 258 


imperator, 50 


/ore, 54 


grave, 54 


incisive, 281 


tow, 219 


grimace, 254 


index, 264, 296 


tony, 33 


groom, 257 


indigo, 258 




grotesque, 254 


industry, 242 


machete, 259 


grunsel, 143 


inoculate, 279 


mackintosh, 257 


guess, 33 


inquiry, 166 


madam, 232 


guild, 33 




Magdalen, 145 


yzaft, 33 


/acfo, 257 


magnanimity, 242 


guitar, 254 


jockey, 255 


maidservant, 58 


guttapercha, 258 


;o%, 229 


majestdts-beleidigung, 256 


gymnasium, 296 


;om*«, 232 


mandarin, 258 




/ndye, 232 


mangelwurzel, 255 


fca&ti, 254 


justice, 232 


manila, 258 


hackneyed, 191 




manservant, 58 


halten, 54 


few7, 214 


manteau, 254 


handicap, 257 


Aa&e, 257 


marquis, 232 


happy, 219 


&a/J, 54 


master, 232 


72a?\fc 6a cifc, 266 


Aate, 54 


matador, 258 


Aasty, 229 


ketchup, 258 


matron, 164 


haven, 219 


Aett/e, 216 


mattock, 213 


ftear*/i, 165-166 


keycold, 188 


maturity, 242 


heimweh, 256 


AicA, 206 


menu, 254 


Ae/p, 54 


kindergarten, 256 


mercy, 228 


hensparrow, 58 


&m#, 32 


meter, 216 


hiccough, 190 


kitchen, 216 


wi7e, 216 


%/i/", 255 


knave, 54 


wm'K, 216 


fo7/, 52 


knockabout, 257 


mischief, 265 


hinterland, 256 


knout, 258 


mistress, 232 


Aft, 219 


kommodore, 257 


moccasin, 258 


Tiooo, 208 


Aro/y'e, 259 


mollycoddle, 206 


hocus pocus, 209 




monger, 212 


AoW, 54 


laager, 259 


monist, 273 


Tiome, 255 


tofior, 228 


morgue, 32 


Aonor, 230 


langue, 32 


mosey, 209 


Ao?'n, 52 


(er) lauben, 54 


mother, 232 


horse, 194 


/awn, 153 


move, 229 


Aon?*, 229 


town tennis, 255 


muckraker, 206 


nnfife, 229 


7ea7?e, 54 


musicale, 254 


AnZJ, 258 


legend, 164 


mutton, 228 


human, 199 


Jese mageste, 256 




humane, 199 


Jewa 1 , 265 


napkin, 231 


humbug, 257 


Zicie, 54 


nation, 232 


husband, 219 


KA 257 


ne'e, 254 


Amss?/, 190 


ZiAe, 320 


niece, 232 




fon^, 208 


nephew, 232 


/, 69, note 


Zoose, 219 


nice, 202 


fdfof, 265 


too*, 258 


non compos mentis, 209 



356 



INDEX OF WORDS 



noon, 216 
Norman, 29 
nostril, 190 
nurse, 257 

oasis, 164 
oblivious, 281 
octopus, 163 
odd, 219 
odium, 264 
oleomargarine, 260 
omen, 264 
orcws, 264 
om/rr, 264 
opera, 258 
opium, 264 
orangoutang, 258 
orchard, 190 
organ, 215 
oasf, 229 
oiw, 54 
oz, 228 

palace, 254 
pannequet, 225 
paresis, 166 
^ass, 229 
pastor, 264' 
pastry, 231 
pater, 51 
^paZA, 131-134 
patron, 164 
pauper, 264 
i?eace, 228, 232 
peach, 205 
i?ec&, 229 
pellis, 51 
pemmican, 258 
peremptory, 163 
perfect, 177 
perfume, 199 
phenomena, 296 
piano, 258 
pibroch, 214 
piquenique, 255 
plaid, 214 
jo/afe, 231 
jtfea, 232 
jo/eatf, 232 



^ZaraA;, 209 
pogrom, 258 
ponche, 255 
poodle, 255 
J9qp, 185 
^or&, 228 
porter, 257 
portray, 232 
potato, 258 
pound, 212 
i>OM?er, 228, 232 
prayer, 232 
preach, 232 
predicament, 281 
premium, 264 
present, 199 
pretzel, 255 
priest, 215 
prince, 232 
progress, 164 
pronunciamento, 259 
publicist, 274 
.W, 197 
punch, 257 



quartz, 255 

racial, 273 
radium, 259 
raglan, 257 
rajah, 258 
ransack, 219 
realm, 232 
reconcentrado, 259 
recondite, 166 
redingote, 255, 257 
re#a£, 273 
rekord, 257 
reftc, 232 
rhum, 255 
ro'nd, 153 
ritzen, 54 
river, 229 
7-oasJ, 231 
robber, 257 
rosbif, 255 
rotten, 219 
roj/tt/, 232 
ruppee, 258 



satf, 195 

sa#a, 258 

sandwich, 255 

saj9, 54 

sauerkraut, 255 

savior, 232 

scan*, 219 

scare, 219 

sc^q/", 54 

scheck, 257 

schedule, 163 

schieben, 54 

scfojf, 54 

schlafen, 54 

schlips, 257 

schmack, 257 

scientist, 274 

scrape, 219 

seemly, 219 

set^e, 232 

sergeant, 232 

series, 264 

service, 232 

shale, 255 

s&fflZZ and will, 293-295 

shamrock, 214 

sAeep, 54, 228 

shillelagh, 214 

sAtp, 54 

sAorf, 208 

sAore, 54 

silvertip, 188 

simmer, 185 

sir, 232 

sister, 232 

sjY, 54 

situate, 240, note. 

sz'zz/e, 185 

skedaddle, 209 

sH, 258 

sjfetrfoo, 209 

sMJ, 219 

s&m, 219 

skipper, 258 

sM, 219 

%, 219 

sfan<7, 257 

sJee/?, 54 

slogan, 214 

5/oop, 275 



INDEX OF WORDS 



357 



slough, 213 
smoking, 257 
snicker, 185 
snide, 209 
sobriety, 242 
soil, 229 
soiree, 254 
rotater, 228 
sound, 152-153 
sozodont, 260 
spalpeen, 214 
species, 264 
spectrum, 264 
spenzer, 257 
spondulix, 209 
squalor, 163 
square, 258 
starboard, 190 
state, 232 
stem, 255 
steppe, 258 
steward, 257 
stirrap, 144, 190 
stacks, 257 
staoZ, 220 
stare, 257 
steata via, 17, 212 
staee*, 17, 212 
streik, 257 
strenge, 22, note. 
string, 22, note. 
studio, 258 
stupendous, 281 
sm£«, 232 
suite, 254 
sullen, 195 
supper, 231 
sweater, 257 
swine, 228 

faWe, 229 

ta&te rf' fidte, 254 
ta&oo, 258 
taA-e, 219 
ta«oo, 258 
ta«6, 54 
tea, 258 



technique, 227 
telegram, 260 
telegraph, 260 
telharmonic, 260 
temperance, 242 
temperate, 282 
ten, 51 
tender, 257 
tenuis, 51 
terminus, 264 
taez'/, 54 
taire, 51 
taou, 51, 89-93 
taraW, 182 
three, 51 
taWre, 219 
^ffora, 51 
ft'te, 216 
fo"«, 219 
ta'ra, 54 
ta, 54 
taastf, 255 
tobacco, 258 
tobacconist, 274 
toboggan, 258 
toilette, 254 
tomato, 138 
tongue, 32, 54 
tonneau, 255 
taota, 51, 54 
ta/j, 257 
TV?/, 214 
tourist, 274 
tawn, 228 
trainer, 257 
tramway, 255 
transit, 264 
<re&, 259 
ires, 51 
trimmen, 257 
taoZ/, 258 
troupe, 179 
ta, 51 

ta&e, 136-137 
tarcye, 32 
tar/, 257 
ta^j'sf, 274 



M£/y, 219 
ulster, 257 
wrccte, 232 
unique, 281 
universal, 282 
wse, 229 
usquebaugh, 214 

vaterland, 256 
re«Z, 228 
•uersi, 258 
vieiopoint, 188 
viking, 258 
villain, 261 
villainy, 233 
mVtae, 233 
vizor, 163 
vodka, 258 

wa<te, 265 
«?a^, 212 
wa/te, 255 
wampum, 258 
weltschmerz, 256 
wAir, 185 
whiskey, 214 
wMz, 185 
wielen, 212, note 
w(/e, 262-263 
wifman, 58, 144 
wigwam, 258 
Winchester, 18 
window, 144, 189 
Mime, 212 

woman, 58, 144, 190 
Worcester, 18 
worjfe, 228 
.write, 54 
wrong, 219 

za^n, 54 
Zeitgeist, 256 
zinc, 255 
2tan, 54 

zoology, 278-279 
zm, 54 
zunge, 54 



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